uSerS Level 1
by AnimeFreakFreaks
Summary: Hi there, I'm swordsman Shizu Sanu, currently at Kumi Academy. It's my first year here, and I hope to become a pro user through my five years here. But, I have to work for a retard, try to ignore a certain snob, and something weird is going on at night.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Okay, well this is my first story actually. It might be confusing, weird, and random at the same time for some readers; but it's meant to entertain, so enjoy. BTW: The rating is not T on this chapter, but it will be T later so I suppose I should put it as T.**

It's cold, real cold. A bit of snow is falling, in fact. My whole body feels numb, but I keep running in this freezing tundra. And to make it worse, I can barely see anything ahead of me. It's dark and I have a hood on so my face can't be distinguished. One bakery salesman is chasing Daiki and I, yelling his head off. He also keeps running. We both have a bag of bread loaves occupied on our hands.

Usually, on the second-to-last day of the year, families would be inside a cozy house getting read to celebrate. But winter is the worst season to be living outside in Kumi City. Our stomachs and flesh suffer. The temperature is agonizing. Horrible, just horrible. By the way, my name's Shizu. Shizu Sanu, but I don't think that's my real last name.

"Keep running", Daiki said. I roll my eyes while still sprinting.

"Anything else to say in this time?" I ask. He doesn't reply, we reached a 10 feet tall fence. We both look back at the salesman catching up.

"Ready?" I ask. Daiki nods. I bend my knees, and jump onto the fence. I crawl up the fence as fast as I can, and Daiki does the same. We reach the other side in about a minute. The salesman stops at the fence, and gives a nasty snare.

"You street mutts aren't worth it.", he said and walked away extremely angry. His comment doesn't affect us at all, we've been called that by citiers since we can both remember.

We keep moving, but only walking fast this time. After a few minutes, we see the East Dump. There are 8 dumps in the city. The usual names: North, NE, East, SE, South, SW, West, and NW. They are near the borderlines of the city. The homeless are usually living near the dumps surrounding the city as well. But I'm not homeless, I for one have a tent, so I refuse to say I'm homeless. Daiki and I finally reach our home.

Next to the dumpster, we see a couple of small fires, trying to survive the snow. It looks like about a hundred people live here. We go to our family tent.

"Shizu!" Akio shouts happily and he runs up to hug me. 2 years old and still cute. Akio then runs to Daiki.

Chou comes walking and carrying Kouki. "Welcome back", she said smiling.

"Hope the trip wasn't hard", Yuina said as she walked up behind Chou carrying Ume.

"It was alright." I reply, "Is Ryuta back yet?"

"Not yet." Yuina said.

"Aww, we can't celebrate your birthday yet, Souta." I said smirking.

He appears behind Yuina and said,"I was about to sneak on you! And you're late!"

"Your presence is obvious, and if I'm late then why isn't Ryouta here?" I said. He gives me a glare and then he murmurs 'butt head'. My patience is over. "Huh? What did you say? Butt head?" I shout.

"I was just saying what you are!" he yells back.

"Shut up! Daiki and I were the ones who brought you some freakin' bread!", I shout back.

"I prefer cake more!" he yells. Our family is intently looking at us.

I reached for his neck to choke him when inside the tent someone says, "It's useless fighting with each other, dears." Kazue comes out. Souta and I give her a quick bow.

"I apologize." I say to Souta. He does the same.

Kazue smiles. "Let's all get in the tent now, dears." she suggests. All of us manage to get in the 6 feet by 6 feet tent. We all sit and wait silently for Ryuta. Okay, maybe not silently. Souta and I are glaring at each other, Kouki starts crying, and Akio's stomach is growling.

"Can we pwease eat now?" Akio asks.

"On birthdays, we wait until everyone is here for dinner, dear." Kazue said with patience.

"Well, we can eat now." A voice- Ryuta says while coming inside the tent. "Sorry I'm late."

"Ryuta!" Akio shouts as he runs up to and hugs him. Ryuta hugs back smiling. Now we have to really squeeze inside the tent, but we still manage to fit. Daiki and I give one bread, 5 inches wide and long, to each person. 10 more breads to eat tomorrow. We sing happy birthday to Souta, and everyone older than him tells him something while eating the bread.

"Happy birthday, I still remember when you were a baby~", Chou said.

"Happy 5th birthday, you still have a long way of surpassing me." Daiki said smugly.

"Happy birthday, you still need to mature." I said grinning. Souta gives a pout.

"Happy birthday, you were born five years ago on this day." Yuina said.

"Happy birthday bud, you are one year closer to becoming a man." Ryuta said.

"Happy birthday, hope you listen on what I'll have to tell you tomorrow, dear." Kazue said.

"I can't wait! I wanna know what you guys know about this world!" Souta whines.

"Oh you will, tomorrow. Just have a good snooze tonight." I said, calming him down. The whole family goes to sleep after drinking a few sips of our water supply. I try to go to sleep, but thinking about the day after tomorrow makes me awake for a few extra hours. I still manage to get some sleep at least.

~~~The Next Day~~~

"Tell me, tell me, tell me!" someone shouts, waking me up. I discover the voice belongs to Souta. I quickly open my eyes, sit up, and tell him to be quiet. Kazue, him, and I are the only ones awake.

"People are trying to sleep." I whisper. I'm so tired, didn't get much sleep, I was thinking last night. He opens his mouth, but I interrupt, "You'll know when Kazue has the energy to say it, now go back to sleep." He gives me a glare, and lies back down. I squint my eyes, but I let it slide. Wait a minute. I look around the tent and ask Kazue, "Where's Ryuta?"

"Outside, probably just getting some air, dear." Kazue said.

"I'll visit him then." I reply as I head out of the tent. I see Ryuta sitting on the left side of the outer tent.

He smiles at me. "Happy New Year's Eve." he said.

"Thanks, you too." I said as I smile back. I sit next to him. The sun just rised, it should be about 6:00 AM. The snow from last night dried up mostly, but unfortunately, it'll continue sometime tonight. Only a couple of tents actually have people awake. And as I think of tomorrow, I start fiddling with my thumbs.

"Nervous for tomorrow?" Ryuta asks.

"How can I not be?" I reply with a question.

"Daiki and you will do fine. After all, I made it through, AND I raised you guys." he smiles smugly.

I roll my eyes. Yuina did most of the raising. I hear a noise from the tent as I look back. Daiki comes out, with a sleepy face.

As he yawned he said, "Morning, I mean, Happy New Year's Eve." I give two slow nods. Ryuta gives a smile. Now we three are sitting on the left side of the outside of the tent. I can tell Daiki's also a little nervous; we both have that trait where we squint our eyes and watch into the distance when we're nervous.

"Okay, now that you two are here. I'll give a few tips on Kumi Academy." Ryuta said.

"If we make it." Daiki cuts in. Ryuta gives a weird expression like he's pursing his lips.

"Now, I'm JUST going to say stuff about the try-outs. Waste no time during them." he continues.

"Yes, yes, we'll be as slow as turtles." I cut in, sarcastically. Ryuta purses his lips again. "Okay, sorry, go on." I apologize.

"As I was saying, you two must go right after we celebrate the New Year. I'm sure if you fast walk, you'll reach there in 2 hours. They open the doors at 8 AM but people will already be lining up. Do not forget your birth certificates, it's in the back of the tent. It's your only ticket of admission." Ryuta paused and then took another breath, "I know you guys heard this a few days ago but maybe I'm a bit worried too."

"Well, you are a human." Daiki said lifting both palms up with a face that looks like it's saying 'I don't know'.

I roll my eyes, "You look like a person who spends his day on the computer while smoking." He puts his hands down and smiles creepily. I burst laughing, then Daiki, and then Ryuta. We quiet down after a few seconds knowing our family is still sleeping inside.

"Well, I'll go back to sleep. It's not every day you get a break from work." Ryuta said yawning. He goes back inside, and now Daiki and I are just sitting beside each other. I sighed a bit. We're both silent for a few minutes. I break the silence.

"Let's train for tomorrow, dear cousin." I said mockingly.

"Yes, let's." Daiki replies in the same tone.

We get up, take one water bottle out of our storage, and head out of our little land. We both have no idea how the academy's gonna test us, but we'll try to cover basic stuff. We're walking to a training spot we sometimes go to, next to Kumi River. It meets Kumi's borderline 1 mile north from the East Dump. Although, I don't exactly enjoy lakes, it's quiet and peaceful there. On our way there, we ask a bunch of math and language arts questions. Just in case they pop up in the test we take.

"12x8?" I ask.

"96, name all vowels." Daiki replies.

"A, E, I , O, U, and sometimes Y; square root of 64?" I ask and reply. Our city- and country even- really don't have to know much in book smartness. We just need general basics. We're probably dumb compared to the country Dez. Kazue teaches all the kids in our family the basics. Our questions go on until we reach the lake in 30 minutes.

Here's how our training went, with a few 5-minute breaks here and there:

-Yoga for an hour just stretching and relaxing

-Practice combat skills (kicking and punching) for 45 minutes

-Practice flips, cartwheels, and splits (almost got it!) for 45 minutes

I can tell the time is near 10 AM, maybe 15 or 20 minutes before 10. Oh what the heck, I pull my sleeve up, and look at my rubber watch, it's 9:42. Courtesy of Ryuta, getting it on my 13th birthday. Kazue, he, and I are the only ones with anything that tells time, I feel special. "It's 9:42, want to do our last training while going back the our home?" I ask, smirking a bit.

"Okay", Daiki said, smiling smugly," 1, 2."

"Go!" I shout. We both start sprinting. After 2 minutes of pure sprinting, I start to get tired, but Daiki keeps going. Screw those fast legs. I know he's smiling right now. I pause and take a few deep breaths. All I do now is fast walk. Daiki starts to slow down now. He looks back at me and waves his hand. I squint my eyes, "We're only 6 feet apart!"

"Yeah, but I'm still past you~" he said. I don't like this. My stamina is pretty low. I'm only good at short distance, not long distance. Unlike someone I know. Daiki keeps on being a few feet ahead of me the whole time and I just forget it. We reach home at 9:58. Our family is awake now. Akio runs up and hugs us. I give the water bottle to him. Daiki and I spared about 1/3 of it. He smiles and drinks the rest. We all eat the bread Daiki and I stole from yesterday, but this time only half per person. Souta is as excited as he was a couple of hours ago.

"Okay, Souta, dear, it's time. Ryuta, watch the three young ones in the tent and everyone else, sit outside, dears." Kazue said. Souta jumps for joy. I've been through this, and everyone else above 5 years. Chou was not as irritating as Souta. We all sat down, and I pray it won't snow during this long talk. "Now, Souta dear, what do you know about this world so far?" Kazue asked patiently.

"Well, I think I know common sense, you know, remember to breathe." he said. I roll my eyes. "I know we don't have a home, which means we're poor. I know we're obviously not real family." he continues. _Say something about the world, not about you! _I say in my mind. Souta still continues, "I know the world is round. I know we're in a city called Kumi in a country called Lual. That's pretty much it." Well, you can't really expect much from a 5 year old.

"We'll tell you the general ideas of our world, dear." Kazue starts.

"Every land, everything in this world, is in one piece. The humans divided it into 6 countries: Thor, Hestle, Lual, Asthy, Dez, and Suipia." Yuina said.

"Each country is known for something, well except Asthy, they've been isolated for hundreds of years. Thor excels mostly at sports and they're very competitive. Hestle have amazing food and drinks, in other words agriculture; you'll learn that word in a few years. Lual, our country, is great at technology. Dez is very book smart and Suipia is filled with 'nature' people." Daiki said. Souta keeps nodding. This is so weird, we're sitting in a circle like a religious ceremony or something.

"We try to avoid war and help each other, the countries. But we sometimes reach conflicts and you don't want to know what happens there. Each country has a royal family, ours is in this city in fact. Although the princess is off visiting other countries, she's been gone for 3 years already." I said, hoping Souta is actually listening.

Chou continues after me, "Our city is special. This is where you can train to become Users. Our country created these armbands that you can use to fight out of this weird material. It's nice."

"Is that where Shizu and Daiki are going to go to tomorrow?" Souta asked?

"Yes, dear, they're going to try out for it. Now on the laws..." Kazue goes on. Then the cycle goes on and on. We talked in a circle for so long that snow fell a few inches. When the whole speech was done, I was so tired.

"Time please." Chou requests. I look at my watch.

"1:55 PM." I reply. She nods. We all got up and stretched. Ryuta comes out of the tent, looking tired of watching three babies. It's hard for him. He used to be a User, and now he's a works at a front desk only getting paid $500 per month. That's why Daiki and I will have to steal food often. I smile. "Let's eat!"

We eat the last bits of the bread. After lunch the whole family gets into a snow fight. We then make snowmen, snow angels, and try to slide on the snow. Many homeless people stare at us, how we're all shouting and laughing at the top of our lungs. Now it's starting to get really cold. Have I said that before? Oh yes, I have.

Everyone goes back inside the tent, and we talk about the year. Our gains, our losses, and our- can't think of anything else. By the time it's 5 PM, we're done doing all the chitchat. We eat supper, and we won't eat again until midnight comes. Of course, anyone under 5 years will have to go to sleep early.

For supper, we have a 7-inch long jar of almond nuts and two packs of beef jerky from our food supply, to share of course. We all eat in happiness. Our family always has four things: beef jerky, almond nuts, water bottles, medicine, and milk for the babies. Oh, and I forgot love.

After supper, I sit in the middle back of the tent. I see Kazue, Ryuta, Daiki, and Souta playing cards on the left side. I see Yuina and Chou tending the babies on the right side. I lay down knowing I need rest. My eyes close and I slowly fade to sleep.

_This is the life._

"Shizu, Shizu, wake up." A voice said. I opened my eyes and I saw Chou, Ryuta, and the rest of the family's above 5 years olds behind them. I gave a little mumble, and then I sit up. I rub my eyes.

"Wha? What time is it?" I ask while yawning. I bring up my hand to check my watch when Chou catches it.

"Wait, Shizu." Chou said.

"Before you check the time, I have to say a few things. We didn't want to wake you up, you looked so tired. I'm going to give Daiki and you a beef jerky pack and a water bottle for the tryouts. Here's your birth certificate." Ryuta said. He gives me a beef jerky pack, a water bottle, and my certificate.

"Now you can check the time." Chou said, as she smiles. I look at my watch. There's a pause.

"HOLY CRAP IT'S ONE O' CLOCK!" I shout on the top on my lungs. I hastily put on my jacket, and I make a quick check that I have everything. I run out, I pull Daiki(whose already ready) on his shirt, and run out of the tent with a quick bye to my family. They give me a few waves when I glance back once. I'm sprinting now and so is Daiki. "You better have your birth certificate." I said quickly. He smiles and nods.

"Pretty flashy leave you had there." he said, and snickered a bit. I glare at him.

"Come on, we lost one hour already!" I shout at him.

"Okay, okay." Daiki said. After this, I noticed it was snowing about 2 inches high. I glance at my clock, 1:09 AM.

And then I remembered I didn't tell my family 'Happy New Year'.

**A/N: Like it, hate it, ate it? Then review if you have anything to say, thanks~**


	2. Explanation

**So, in chapter one, I threw a lot of stuff at the readers. So, here's an explanation that readers should know currently. :3**

Kouki, 9 months old, male

Ume, 1 year and 1 month old, female

Akio, 2 years and 7 months old, male

Souta, 5 years old, male

Chou, 8 years old, female

Daiki Mori, 13 years old, male (used Yuina's last name)

Shizu Sanu, 13 years old, female (used Ryuta's last name)

Yuina Mori, 26 years old, female

Ryuta Sanu, 39 years old, male

Kazue, seventy-something, female

The only people related in their 'family' are Shizu and Daiki as cousins and Yuina and Kazue as granddaughter and grandmother. A picture of Shizu is my profile picture.

Shizu's family is not particularly important yet, but they are the reason she's going to the academy. She wants to get money to give them a better life. And the family made it tradition to tell a person when they're 5 years old about the world.

Four types of users:

-Swordsman

-Shinobi (ninja)

-Savager (animal companion)

-Sorcerer

I'm giving this ahead of time because it'll be confusing. Only people born in Kumi City can tryout for it. You become a user with a half-inch wide metal bracelet.

Every birth certificate says: Kumi City, the person's name, and birthday.

Shizu and Daiki's parents told the hospital people not to write their last names in the certificate so they could choose their last name and so they wouldn't try to find their parents.

There's five years in the academy. The school classifies a student by level, which equals how many years you've been there. As you can see, the title to this story is level 1, so first year. Every level will have 12 chapters, so 60 chapters in all.

I capitalized the S in users for my title because of Shizu's initials. Plus, all the users start with an S.

Kumi City is shaped like a circle kind of, Kumi Academy is in the north center. Right in front of Kumi Plaza and shopping center.

I got a little inspired to make this story from the anime Mai Otome. I kind of pictured the city in my story to be like the city in Mai Otome. And I also admit, the bracelet part is a little like the anime Kampfer, but it's not brightly colored, and it's for both genders! So for future reference, I do not own Mai Otome, Kampfer, or any anime similar to my story! The only thing I own is my awesome anime posters and this story.

**Thank You~ I'll post the 2nd chapter maybe tomorrow. I really have about 7 chapters done, but I need to edit a lot.**


	3. Chapter 2

**I'm back in action with chapter 2~ Now, I've had certain people read my stories up to chapters not on here yet, and they've said this is the most confusing one. So don't get upset at me that this one is confusing because I KNOW IT IS. If you could help me make it less confusing please tell me. Thank you~**

New Year resolution: make it into Kumi Academy. That's the only thing I'm focused on- for today at least. Daiki and I keep running and running.

"Ugh! I can't believe I forgot to say it!" I shout.

Daiki snorts, "It's okay, you'll say it tonight." I give him a glare. I'm still pissed he didn't wake me up.

We can barely see in the darkness, but there are a few street lamps guiding us. We then saw a stop place Daiki and I planned, the South East dump. When the dump came into view, we stood next to a street lamp and ate some beef jerky. We both took only a sip from the water bottle, and then we were off again.

We begin to just fast walk now; we should be there before 500 are at this rate. After an hour, we take a break- eat and drink- and then we go again. It's so cold we speak rarely. 30 minutes past after we started walking again for the second time, and we see the academy. I rarely see the academy, maybe only 3 times in my life. The walk is tiring.

"Wow." I hear Daiki say. I get out of Memory Lane and see what Daiki's looking at. My mouth opens. There are a lot of people already lined up. We both walk to the line- while praying we'll get in. I look at my clock, 3:34 AM. I calm down a little. I tilt my head to the right and I slowly estimate the number of people ahead of us.

"Near 400. We're okay." I tell Daiki bluntly, "Many parents are with them, that's why." Daiki makes a small noise that sounds like _Hnnn_, but the end of it comes out a bit high pitched. I burst out laughing. He then seemed a bit embarrassed. I stop laughing when I notice a few people looking at us. Then Daiki and I just talk the whole time.

The school doors open at 7 AM, so we had 4 hours to do nothing but wait. Once in a while, we would eat some jerky and drink some water. We'd then just talk and do anything to take our minds out of waiting. The line was piling and piling, it seemed a mile long. By the time we ate half of our jerky and drank half of our water, it was 7.

The doors opened. Everyone stopped talking and turned their heads to the Academy. A middle-aged woman and man came out. The man raised a gray staff he was holding, and says some kind of spell. All of the sudden, black speakers next to him were summoned. There were about 5 of them. The man then summoned a mike, and gave it to the woman.

"Thank you for coming. I'm saying thank you to the 13 year olds. Parents or guardians- whoever, please leave your children now." she says calmly. The non-13 people hugged their child and left reluctantly. A force field was then put up between every parent to not let him or her hear anything. She continued, "Okay, here's how it's going to work. When you reach the door, give the guard your birth certificate. If it's verified, the guard will give you a sticker that says a number from 1-100. Put it somewhere on your shirt. 500 people will be in groups of 5 and there are 100 groups. So the number we give you will be your group number. That's all you need to know for now."

I hope Daiki and I aren't in the same group, not trying to sound arrogant or anything. The whole getting in the building takes an hour before we get to the front. When we're finally there, the guard looks at mine, and says 'pass'. He gives me a sticker that says 47 on it. Daiki is up and the guard says pass after a few seconds. He gives Daiki a sticker that says 48. Yes! We're not in the same group, they're going number ordered periodically. We went in the building. Wow. It was the fanciest place I've ever been in. Velvet carpet and huge space. It looked about 60 feet long and wide. On the left and right had doors; in front had stairs. The left and right sides had soft benches. There then was a bunch of chairs and tables spread out.

Daiki and I sat down on a sofa next to a wall. We awed at everything and waited a half hour. When about a half hour was up, 500 hundred people were settled in. It sucks for all the people that didn't make it. Finally, the doors were closed. The woman talked with a microphone through the speakers I just noticed were in every corner of the room.

"Congratulations, you got accepted- to try out. Two groups will go at one time. We have the MPR, which is straight up the stairs on the left. Remember to come when your group number is called. The most time will take 10 minutes. The least- is up to you. 10 groups should be finished in approximately one hour. Be ready." she says.

The tryouts start. People come and go. At the end of each battle/round, the winner is announced. The winner always gets out first and some people clap. The losers go out looking a bit shameful and many feel sympathy to them. I can tell many are nervous. When participants come out, some look a bit worn out. I think the technology of the academy gives you a super fast cleaning so no clues can be given about what we have to do.

I hear a few 13 year olds talk.

"This try out should be nothing." a girl says.

"All we have to do is follow the rules!" another girl says.

"I know, so easy." the first girl says. I raise my eyebrows. I know 2 people who aren't going to make it. Daiki and I trained our butts off since we were- I think- 5 years old just to get into this academy.

Time flies, Daiki and I eat and drink a little. And finally, after almost 5 long hours, my group number gets called. I get up so fast; I accidentally spill someone's coffee. I turn around.

"Sorry!" I say so embarrassed. I pick up the remaining of the cup and give it to him. I remember him. Was his name Kent? No, it was Ken. He won a round about an hour back, but why is he still here? I then notice his face. He had bright purple eyes. He would look like an innocent pretty boy except for his dark red hair.

"It's okay," he says very gently, smiling. Okay he is an innocent pretty boy despite the hair. I give a small bow and head off.

"Good luck!" Daiki says. I wave my hand facing the other way. I go up the stairs and get into the left room.

There's a guard at the door. "You're on platform 5." he says. I'm the last one. I nod and get in the room, still big. I could tell it was really long. I went to platform 5. 4 people were already there. The room was separated into 5 lanes going all the way to the end of the room.

"Welcome. This is group 47. This race is simple. You just have to get across to the other side of the room. However, there will be 5 obstacles to go through. This is a race and a test. First person at the end gets to be in this exclusive academy. Good luck." I recognize this voice as the man who summoned the speakers.

I look to my opponents. There's a tall guy next to me. He notices me looking at him and puts his bottom eyelid down and his tongue down. I widen my eyes. _Don't kill him. Don't kill him. Don't kill h-._ "Go!" the man shouts. Dang it! Lost a few seconds, I think as I'm running. I run so fast I almost crash into a wall. The wall is see-through and magic made. On the top of the wall, it says kick and spell the word, user. Letters appear, in keyboard order. I move quickly. I kick u, s, e, r. The wall disappears. I start running again.

After another 15 or so feet, I come across three hurdles. I dare say- I swiftly jumped over all three and moved on.

Then, only a few feet later, another obstacle comes. A floating computer screen. It says answer these five academic questions (press enter). Where's the keyboard? As I'm thinking that, a keyboard comes down from the ceiling, into my hands. I press enter. 26+89+34. My jaw drops. I calm down. A mini white board and dry erase marker appears from the ceiling. I hastily figure out the problem. (A/N: This obstacle is kind of like there's no gravity except for the person, everything falls from the ceiling) After 2 minutes, I get and type in 149. Phew, got it right. The next question came out of speakers, which apparently were behind the computer screen.

"Spell euphonium." a fake voice asks. I take a wild guess and I get it wrong. I try again, thinking a little bit, and get it right. On to the next question. The screen says to put the square root of 169. I quickly type in 13. Next asks, _on the computer, do you italicize or bold the title of a book? _I really have no idea. I take a guess, bold, and it says wrong. I then type italicize fast, and get through. The last question asked 245-67. I get a mini white board and dry erase marker again. I get 178, and type it in, correct! Every tool I used for this obstacle disappears and I move on. (A/N: Just so we're clear, Shizu is good at math, bad at language arts.)

I've heard a lot of noise from my opponents so far. I hope they're not ahead of me. I hear a guy far off shout at the top of his lungs, "Yes! I'm only about 30 feet away suckers!" I then hear him trip, fall, and cuss a little. I almost burst into laughter, but I remember my goal. I see my next obstacle after 15 feet. It's a man-made mud pool. Disgusting! There's a rope hanging from the ceiling. Super quick, I grab the rope and go across, it's only 10 feet long. Pass! I then hear some girl falling into water. Water? My question is answered.

I'm in front of a 24 feet long man made pool with 6 rocks spread out on top. Ignoring any bad feelings I have of water, I tip toe and jump from rock to rock. I almost slip on the last one, but I get through. Yes! I run and run, happy that all the obstacles are done! My mood gets turned around when I see my place separated into to halls. I have to go through one. On the top it says, 'the rest is luck'. Whatever, I randomly pick the right one, run about 10 feet, and I'm there!

"Congratulations to Shizu Sanu! Platform 2 was only a few seconds late! You are accepted, Shizu. Please come here tomorrow, at the latest noon," the magic man says. I know this is speaking to the people in the waiting hall too, so I'm a bit embarrassed. I sit in the supposedly winner chair and it moves magically above the arena and stops in front of the exit. I get off and go out.

I hear clapping. I give a closed-mouth smile and sit at the place I was sitting at. The coffee guy is still there, and he gives a smile. "Congrats." he says. I think he smiles a bit too much. But whatever, I got my New Year resolution completed!

I look around, and Daiki's standing up next to me. I guess his group is being called now.

"I knew you'd make it, but step aside now, cause it's my time to shine." He said.

"Heh? Do your best then?" I said grinning. He nods and goes ahead.

After 7 minutes, the speaker announces group 47's winner. "Congratulations to Daiki Mori! Almost lost to platform 5, but you got there first! You are accepted, Daiki. Please come here tomorrow, at the latest noon." I'm really pissed at how they say platform blah was so close; it ruins the second place's spirit. A few seconds later Daiki comes out hands in his pocket, grinning. Trying to look cool, I can tell. He comes up to me, and we slap hands, the cool way. I guess by my face, he can tell I got in too. As I start to head out, Daiki touches my shoulder.

"Why don't we just wait here? Might as well savor this fancy place before we start walking back right?" Daiki suggested grinning.

"You have a point." I replied. During the tryouts, I ran as if it was for my life, but in this case, it was for my family. I was still tired from it. We rested there for about an hour, and then started walking back to home.

As we walk, we both talk about our group race. We say how hard and easy obstacles were. We finish the rest of our jerky and water. By the time we're done taking an overview of today, we reach our home in 2 and a half hours. I check my watch, 5:07 PM. Akio runs up to us, as usual.

"Well, did chu guys make it?" he asks. The whole family is outside.

"We... made it! Both of us!" I shout as I jump up. Our family gives us thumbs up or say 'good job'. We all go back in the tent. The snow stopped but it's still very cold.

"I knew you guys would make it!" Ryuta says. I give a grin.

"Oh yeah, happy new year guys! Sorry I forgot to say it this morning." I say.

"It's alright. You were in a rush." Yuina says calmly. I smile genuinely.

After I few more remarks, we have a little celebration. Ryuta bought a pack of food and water while we were gone. So, we're eating like a real family in the tent. Ryuta manages to get a fire going outside the tent at around 6. Most of us sit outside around the fire. We talk and laugh for quite a while. Family members go back in until it's just Daiki and I.

"Nice weather for us, right?" I say to break the silence. Daiki gets one of those serious faces.

"Listen, Shizu." Daiki starts.

"You're going to say something about the academy right?" I say, cutting him. He pauses, but continues.

"This is hard to explain but, in the academy, let's break apart." Daiki says. I give a confused look. "I mean, I want us to rely on ourselves, we're going to live our own lives there. We can say we're cousins and help each other a bit, but no relying."

I laugh. "You're a bit of a hypocrite you know Daiki? I'll say the circumstances. We'll help each other, and we'll make our own legends there." I give him my hand. He grins as I bring him up.

Daiki speaks. "But I'll still be cooler than you there." I give a little snicker and smile.

Daiki is about to go back in when I stop him. "Wait, tell Chou to come out." I say. He nods and goes back in. Chou comes out a minute later.

"You called?" she asks.

"Yeah, well there were a few things I wanted to tell you." I state.

"Is it the duties I have to do while Daiki and you are gone?" she asks again. I smile and nod.

"Watch everyone. Make sure the family limits how much they eat. Maybe you can steal food, but don't go without Souta. I thought about trying out for the school for a long time. Please respect my choices." I say sincerely.

"I understand Shizu. I think the academy is a great opportunity for anyone. Be careful there." she says.

"You be careful too. And I want you to have this." I say as I give my waterproof watch to her. She gasps.

"Thank you! I'll use it every time I can." she says giving me a big smile.

She gets up, and turns towards the tent. "Tell Souta to come please." I say. She continues walking. A few seconds later, Souta comes out.

"What is it?" he says with wonder. I give a laugh.

"You know already. You were eavesdropping on my conversation with Daiki and Chou." I say smirking. He blushes a bit.

"Don't speak of it! I was concerned!" he shouts. I calm down a bit.

"Keep your voice down, bud." I say. He closes his mouth.

"There are a few matters I want to discuss. Yes, it's about your duties." I say. Souta is about to speak, but closes his mouth again. "Daiki and Ryuta will be gone most of the time. You, unfortunately, will be the oldest male around." I say seriously. He gives a serious face back.

I continue, "When you think the time is right, steal some food. Be very cautious, and never show your face. You've been with us before; remember the other things you do. If you don't want to go alone, take Chou, protect her too." There's a moment of silence.

"I got it, I got it. We don't have to get all serious," he says, to get rid of the awkward mood. I nod my head.

"You can go back in now." I say. He gets up, smiles, and goes back in.

I stay looking at the fire for a few seconds. When I'm about to get up to go back in the tent, Ryuta comes out.

"You wanted me to come?" he asks.

I raise my eyebrow. "No, I didn't."

"Well, I wanted myself to come." he states and sits beside me.

"So, what do you want to say to me?" I ask, cutting to the chase, "Let me guess, it's about the academy. Why don't you bring Daiki out too then?"

He does speak for a bit, smiling. "Nice questions. I talked to Daiki already."

"Of course. So what is it?" I ask with wonder in my voice.

"I just want to same some things within the academy. Let's see. When you go in tomorrow, some kind of sensor will tell you which user you will be. I'm sure I told you all 4 of them but I'll tell you again. Swordsman, shinobi, savager, and sorcerer. All hail the S's." he says. I give a small laugh.

"You will then be assigned uniforms and dorms. Sorry but you'll have to get 4 people dorms, and you have to pay $50 per month even for that." he says more seriously. I get worried over this.

"But. Ask the principal tomorrow; he might give you a job. Also, there's a chance you might get bullied if people know you're poor. I think you can take care of them." he smiles evilly. I give a genuine smile.

He continues, "The rest will be explained at the orientation tomorrow. No classes tomorrow, just orientation and getting settled in. I wish you the best of luck."

I nod. "I'll do my usual best."

Ryuta nods and speaks, "That's the Shizu I know." He pats my head, how corny. But I guess corny is good once in a while. He gets up. "It's about time we go to sleep. It's 8:30, you need rest from today and for tomorrow." I get up and we both head inside the tent. I help tend the two babies with Yuina and by the time that's done, the family's ready to sleep.

We're all set tight in the tent. The fire's blown out and it gets a little colder. I try to sleep between the coldness and my nervousness. After maybe an hour of pure thinking, I fall into a slumber.

~~~The Next Day~~~

Someone's shaking my shoulder calling my name. I open my eyes and see that it's Chou. "What time?" I ask whispering.

"It's, uhh, 9 AM." she says. What? Why am I sleeping in a lot these days? I get up fast. Kazue and Chou are up and that's all.

"I got to go now." I say fast. Chou gives me a small bag of nuts and I drink a few sips of water, not bringing the bottle. "Where's Daiki?" I ask.

"Umm, he left about an hour ago." Chou states.

I raise my whisper voice, "That son of a-" Kazue coughs.

I blush, "Sorry."

"We'll miss you, dear." Kazue says as I continue getting ready.

"I'll miss you guys more. We are family." I say. I grab my jacket, but pause for a minute. "For... extra warmth, I'll give my family my jacket. It's really not that much, but it'll provide a little bit more." I give the jacket to Chou. She smiles.

"That's what Daiki did," she says. "I think I'm going to cry, Shizu." I pat her back and then I hug her.

I get up. "Bye bye, tell the rest of the family I said that. Promise me you'll all be okay." I request. Chou nods.

"Promise ME, you'll both be okay. Let's promise each other." she says. I give a sorrowful smile, and give out my pinky. She gives hers out, and we make a pinky promise. I go out of the tent.

I start running out of the dump, not looking back. Now, I think I might cry.

**So basically, they made it into the academy, pretty much all you need to know. Oh, and the main guy (Ken) debuted in this chapter!**

**Ken: That's right bit(beep)es.**

**AFF: Hey! No cussing in this after chapter chat thing. And hey! I decided not to even have these before and after chapter chat things!**

**Ken: R & R! Or else you'll (beep) and (beep) in hell!**

**AFF: Well, one cuss word is fine for this chat thing right?**

**(And this chat thing itself was a spoiler of Ken)**


	4. Chapter 3

**Okay, chapter 3! So many people will appear in this chapter! Read carefully and thanks~**

I'm walking fast the whole time. "Ha-choo!" It's so cold without my jacket. I hug my shoulders. I curse the weather, and I start running. I make short stop-and-goes. I reach the school in two hours. I'm guessing it's around 11 AM. I hope I made it before 12. I run up the steps to the academy.

Five doors are opened. Each has a number 1-5. I go over to door 1. A few others are in line. I line up. A few minutes, and I'm in front of the door with two guards.

"Name?" A guard says.

"Shizu Sanu." I reply.

"Checked. When you go through the door, it'll tell you which user you are. Do not complain, and other guards will give you supplies." a guard says in a gruff voice. I give a small nod. I go inside, ready for my fate.

"You are a swordsman." a technical voice says. A swordsman eh? Different from Ryuta but whatever, the sound of it is cool. I see a table beside the door. It has uniforms. Two more guards at the table.

Before they say anything, I say, "Shizu Sanu. Swordsman."

The female guard speaks, "Okay, You get the purple uniform." She gives me 2 uniforms, along with 2 white loafers. No comment there.

The male guard speaks, "Do you want leggings, tights, high socks, or low socks? Either way they're all purple."

"High socks please." I answer. He nods and gives me two pairs of high socks. I head to the next table. It has notebooks, pencils, etc. Two guards there too.

"Just 3 points for notebooks, 1 for pencils!" one guard says enthusiastically.

"Sorry, have no points." I say. You can convert cash for points in the academy, and vice versa. Points only work in the academy, Ryuta said.

The guard gives me a sympathetic face. "You'll have to talk to the principal today then. You need points for dorms too." I give a nod. I walk to the next table.

"4 people dorms or 2 people dorms. No more space for 1." the guard speaks right when I reach there.

"4 people. I have no points to pay yet, but I'll talk to the principal." I reply. The guard smiles and gives me a key.

"Girls are on the first left hallway when you turn to the right of the stairs. Your room number is 26. Oh, and you let your bracelet- which you will get next- absorb your key. The dorm doorknob will scan your bracelet and let you in.", he says. I shake my head. I go over to the next table. So many tables. Four guards are there.

"A swordsman you are?" one guard asks. She can tell by the uniform I'm holding. I nod my head. "Alright. Here's your bracelet. Be careful with it, has lots of power. It will be the other half of you. Never take it off- not even during showers." the guard says a bit seriously.

"Thanks." I say. I walk off to the final table. It has two guards.

"This is the schedule table. You have four classes. Since you're a swordsman, that will be your first class- homeroom." a guard says. I nod.

"Two more are Physical Education and General 1. General means just general things to learn in the world. The last class is up to you. It's either Study Hall, Music, Art, Basketball, or Soccer." My answer was obvious.

"Study Hall please." I say. The guard nods and gives me a piece of paper.

1. Swordsman 1: Room 3

2. General 1: Room 6

3. Physical Education 1: Girl Locker Room

4. Study Hall 1: Library

Decent enough. I walk straight, to the front of the stairs. I see a hall on the right and I go through there. One side says girls, one side says girls special, the other I can't tell. Weird. I go through the girls one. I walk and walk until I see three halls- spread apart. Each hall has numbers. 1-20, 21-40, and 41-60. I see a few girls pass me and I say nothing.

As I go in the hall, I think about the fact that I have to live with other people. I hope they're decent. One side has even number, the other odd. They're spread really well. 12 feet. I then notice I passed 26. I squint my eyes and go to 26. I quickly open the door- and the door crashes on someone's head.

"Are you okay? I'm sorry!" I say. I look at the person who's at the floor now. She has plain brown hair that's tied high neatly and gold eyes. She's wearing a cardigan over a plain gray shirt and a jean skirt over black leggings.

She's rubbing her forehead. "I'm alright." She gets up, but she's about to fall again. I catch her.

"Okay, you are not alright." I say as I lead her to the beds- which I notice are bunk beds. She sits on the right bed. I take a look at the room; it looks 12 by 12 feet. Next to the right bunk beds, there's a door- the bathroom. Next to the left bunk beds there are cubicle boxes 3 by 3 feet, stacked 2 by 2. Small, but okay.

"Emi Kaneko." the girl sitting on the bed says.

"Huh?" I ask still dazed.

"That's my name." Emi says.

"Oh, well I'm Shizu Sanu." I reply.

"Nice to meet you Shizu. The one over there is Tomoko Watanabe. The only two words I can get out of her." Emi points at the left corner of the room.

Wow, I did not notice her. She has one knee up, and one leg out. Daiki would be proud. She has long silver- almost white- hair that's tied low style. Her eyes are dark blue- cobalt. She's wearing a vest over a collared shirt and brown skinny jeans. She has the 'glare'.

I grin. "Tomoko is it? I'm Shizu." I say.

Tomoko hesitates to speak. "I heard your name already." she replies.

"I know, but what's wrong with repeating?" I give an even wider grin. She glares at me, then looks the other way.

"We're still missing one person, and it's already 11:30." Emi says. I forgot about time.

The door opens and our last dorm mate is here. She looks pretty high class. Light pink curly hair down to her shoulders. Her eyes are green and she has plain glasses. She's wearing a long sleeve shirt with a plain pink dress over in with small heels. She's carrying tons of notebooks and pencils. She has a confident smile. Emi gasps.

"I know you! You're Katsumi Fudaku! Your dad is a royal guard. Oh my gosh! Why are you in this type of dorm?" Emi says, smiling. It's common sense I guess that really rich people shouldn't be in this type of dorm.

Katsumi smiles. "Thanks for knowing me. I asked to be in this dorm, plus they ran out. Can I have your names?" Her voice is normal.

"I'm Emi Kaneko. The girl at the corner is Tomoko Watanabe." Emi says.

"Shizu Sanu's my name." I say. Katsumi nods and fixes her glasses place.

"The Kaneko clan are famous merchants in City Square. They run a restaurant famous for their freshness. I heard many family members tried out for the academy, but never made it. I presume you are the first Emi." Katsumi says.

Emi smiles. "Yep! I am!" Katsumi walks over to Tomoko.

"Many citizens have the last name Watanabe. However, there's a famous line of Watanabes that have signature silver hair. Almost all of them are guards. Good job on following your clan's steps." Katsumi says. Tomoko gives a weird face and Katsumi goes up to me.

"Sanu, Sanu. Very uncommon, but I have heard of it before. A guard works at the front desk of the government building. I remember his last name is Sanu, his first name started with an R or something." Katsumi is in thought.

"Ryuta Sanu. He's kind of a father to me." I say. Katsumi nods.

"I have that data saved now." she says. "My name is Katsumi Fudaku, and yes, my dad is a royal guard. Which type of user are you guys?"

"I'm a shinobi." Emi says.

"Summoner." Tomoko murmurs.

"A swordsman." I say.

"That's great. I'm a swordsman. We're missing a sorcerer." Katsumi says. "Oh, and we should change now. It's 11:40 AM. Lunch is at 12, then the orientation."

"The orientation?" I ask, I didn't hear about that. Wait, now I remember.

"The principal's going to explain more stuff I guess." Emi says. We all take turns going in the bathroom changing. I was the last one. The bathroom was long. The shower was four by four feet that we could stand in. There was a big mirror though and a decent toilet. Right below the door lights in the bathroom are 4 cloth bags on a roller cart. I guess you put dirty clothes in there.

The uniforms look so superficial. It's one piece and long sleeve. On the left it has a cross. One line going all the way down to the skirt, another line on the waist line. The very top is sailor style. And on the other side of the cross is the number 1. The background is white, the rest purple. The shoes are regular, and the socks are warm. It's the fanciest thing I ever worn. When we're all in our uniforms, and done complimenting, we decide on our beds.

"I'm okay with the top." I say.

"Alright, I'll sleep below you." Emi says.

"Top." Tomoko says.

"I'll go below you then." Katsumi says smiling. Emi and I are on the left side, next to the cubicles. "Oh, the time is 11:55. Let's get going."

We all get out of the dorm and head the way we came in. We're back on the stairs and we go straight up. The place we're going in is to the right of the try-outs area. I'm guessing it's the eating-place then.

Once we go in, I notice a lot of people are already there. The place is big, maybe 3/4 of the try-outs room. I then notice in front of the line for food is floating chairs. I give a raised eyebrow.

"You're suppose to sit on them." Katsumi says. "They always go the way the line goes but they read your mind to where you want to sit." That's kind of weird. I reluctantly sit on the chair. It bobbles a bit and moves in a nice pace. So this is why the tables have no chairs.

I look at the food. It looks amazing; I've never seen this much fancy food. I grab a metal tray.

There are four main dishes, four side dishes, and four drinks to choose. I choose pizza for main, mash potatoes for side, and water for drink. At the end of the food line, I get a fork and a straw. Katsumi's in front of me, so my chair just follows her to a table. I estimate there are 80 tables each 6 feet long. All 4 of us sit on an empty table near the front. Emi, Katsumi, and I are sitting on the left side while Tomoko's on the other side far from us. We're barely settled when a girl on a chair comes up to us.

She has light blue pigtails, and her uniform is purple like mine. "Hey, you're Katsumi Fudaku right? Why don't you come sit at your rightful place? The famous Arisa Yoshida is there too." She points to a full table with all the girls- even some boys are crowding a girl with a white scarf. The scarf girl's not exactly smiling.

Katsumi fixes her glasses. "Mana Goto. Your parents are both A rank guards." she pauses for a bit then continues, "I'm fine sitting here." Mana gives a glare darker than Tomoko's and leaves. Emi gives a concerned face. Ryuta told me the ranks from bottom to up are D, C, B, A, and then royal guard.

"You really don't have to sit with us, Katsumi." I say.

"It's okay, I want to." she says. I give a smile. We talk a bit about random things, mostly our expectations for the school. Tomoko joins the conversation once in a while, but she mostly eats in silence. It's 12:30 when an announcer speaks.

"Level 1 students, go to the MPR for your orientation within 10 minutes. I repeat, Level 1 students, go to the MPR for your orientation within 10 minutes. Thank you," a female voice says from the speakers. Emi just finished her food. She was the last one, so we all get up and go out of the eating-place. All we do is go to the right of the stairs and we go in.

We're one of the firsts to get in. The place has transformed. It's like those theaters Kazue described to me one time. We decide to go to the third row. There are 10 rows of probably 10 chairs on each row. The chairs are not floating here, but they're very soft. We quietly wait 10 minutes and all chairs are filled. I hear whispers, a few shouts, and so forth.

"Quiet please." a middle-aged man says. He comes onto the stage. "Welcome, level 1 students, to the 46th year of Kumi Academy. You guys are lucky, the class of the school's 50th year. Let's hope you don't base your skills on luck though." He pauses for a moment. "27 girls and 73 boys. Four Users: Swordsman, Sorcerer, Shinobi, and Savager. Every day will open up new learning. Now onto the school. Scientist of Lual created the amazing bracelets. This school was founded- of course 46 years ago. Kumi was chosen to have the academy here. This opportunity will change your lives forever. I remember when..." on and on he went.

The last thing he said was, "Remember, curfew at 10 PM on weekdays, and midnight on weekends!"

How can you talk so long? 2 and a half hours! Everyone was tired after the orientation. The principal explained everything this school. Where everything is, why they're there, etc. My dorm mates and I slowly walk to our dorms.

"It's 3:10. We have the rest of the day to ourselves. Some other level users are just arriving." Katsumi says. I nod.

We get into our dorms. "Let's get the cubicles the same way we got our bunk beds. That means I get the top left one." I say. They agree and I put my extra clothes inside. That's all I have.

"That's all you have Shizu?" Katsumi asks. She has ten notebooks, ten pencils, and ten erasers. She also has a backpack, blow dryer, curler, comb, body wash, and shampoo. And don't forget the laptop. I nod slowly. She gives me a notebook, pencil, and eraser. 'There." she says smiling. I give her a smile.

"Thank you. I'll pay you back. Let's see, 5 points." I say.

She hesitates and replies, "Okay then."

Emi has the same amount I just got, and Tomoko has 3 notebooks, pencils, and erasers. I also notice Tomoko has a guitar case. We all get settled in.

"What now?" I ask.

"Well, we do anything. Oh, and sometimes students get called to the principal's office for personal reasons." Katsumi says. I nod and then, right then, the speaker comes on. One speaker is in each dorm I think.

"Shizu Sanu, please come to the principal's office. I repeat, Shizu Sanu, please come to the principal's office," the principal says. There's a moment of silence.

"Did the whole school hear that or something?" I ask.

"No, the principal can choose to speak at a specific section. I think just the girls dorm heard it." Katsumi says. I nod.

"Ehehe... I'm off then!" I say walking out of the dorm. As I walk out to and down the stairs, I meet Daiki in a red uniform. I grin, and we pass by each other without speaking. The principal office is to the right of the bottom of the stairs. I brace myself, and then open the door.

I see the same orientation man. His two arms are folded onto his superficial desk. He gestures for me to sit down in a seat in front of his desk. I slowly sit down on the chair.

"Shizu Sanu, someone named Ryuta who works at the front desk at the government place, told me something. He told me to give Daiki Mori and you a certain job that will grant you money." The principal- whose last name is Takeda, pauses for a moment. I nod, and he

continues, "Have you noticed how aside from the girl dorms, there's a hall that says girl special?"

"Yes, I've noticed, sir." I say.

"Good. Well, there are boy special too. Everyday after school, you are to go over to boy special room B and serve the person whose living there. You are to be at the place by 2:30 sharp. The person may dismiss you earliest 3 and latest 6. Every person may not know who you are unless necessary. This mask, when you put it on, your uniform color will turn gray and your hair color & hair style will change," Principal Takeda says as he gives me the mask.

The mask is white and it only goes over my eyes, not my whole face. I give an obedient nod. "Every month you work for the person will give you money for your dorm. So people don't suspect you, here is a teleport card to get right in front of the dorm. If you want extra money, you can sign up for weekend cleaning. You must be the first ten to sign up each weekend." I take the card. I give another nod and I get up.

"Wait." Principal Takeda says. "I have something else to discuss, it's more personal." He pauses for a bit as I sit back down.

"What is it sir?" I ask.

"Your client is very special. He is my son. I have a few restrictions," the principal says. How cute, daddy's coming in. "I forbid you to get very close to him. Be emotionless. I trust you do this. I'm saying this to your kind, and especially your kind. That is all." I quickly go out of the room, a bit dazed.

What a discriminator! Like I'm really going to follow all his rules. I already found some loopholes. I hope his son is decent, and I mean decent in both ways. I walk all the way back to my dorm, and I open the door slowly this time.

"Welcome back Shizu. How did it go?" Emi asks. Katsumi and Emi are both sitting on their beds facing each other. Tomoko is laying on her bed- the top- listening to music I think.

I give a faint smile. "It was fine. I have to do a certain job after school everyday." Katsumi and Emi both nod. I put the mask in my cubicle.

"3:31 now. What do we do now?" Katsumi asks- for suggestions. I sit beside the bed ladder.

"Well, let's talk. First off, I am homeless. I think I'm an orphan, I'm not sure." I say, spilling it all out.

"That's terrible Shizu." Emi says with a concerned face.

'It's okay actually. I live with a 'family' in the dump." I say, giving air quotes on the family.

"Two questions. What's the dump and how about Ryuta Sanu?" Katsumi asks.

"I call the place I live the dump. It's actually next to the east dump of Kumi City. When I was young I really admired Ryuta. He along with two others raised me in the dump. They picked me up when I was left there. I use his last name because of that." I say.

"That is so touching." Emi says smiling a little. I give a smile back.

"Your turn then Emi." I say. She smiles.

Turns out, she really wanted to get into the academy. All her family did was work in a restaurant. All of them did try-out for the academy but never really tried. Emi trained every time she could and here she is. She also is very athletic.

Katsumi was a different story. Her dad- being a royal guard and all- didn't want any of his family to try out. They had enough money. Katsumi still wanted to try out and so here she is. Also, Katsumi isn't really that smart, she says, she just has photographic memory.

The only thing we got out of Tomoko was that she plays the guitar and she has a brother at the academy.

"That is very specific!" I say, obviously sarcastic. Katsumi, Emi, and I all laugh. Tomoko gets down from the bed.

"I'm going to shower." she says. She grabs her PJ's and goes in the shower.

We all take turns going into the shower. I avoid brushing my teeth; I don't want to ask for too much. My PJ's are just the clothes I came to the academy with- tank top and sweats. When everyone's done, we talk about our families. When I say everyone, I kind of- kind of don't- mean Tomoko. After all the talking, we're all on our beds.

There are a few seconds of silence.

"Wait a minute!" I sit up, "It's only 8 PM! We have to eat dinner!" We all slowly got up.

**Next chapter will be the first day of school! Emi, Tomoko, Katsumi, Mana, Arisa, and the principal debuted in this chapter! Heads up, Arisa's the female deuteragonist of this story.**


	5. Chapter 4

**What up! I'm back and I also have something to say. I hope you've noticed the genre for this story is sci-fi and drama. When I say drama I mean everything: romance, humor, mystery, suspense, a bit tragic in Shizu's later years, family, comfort, and friendship. Fanfiction doesn't have a genre for 'everything'. =.= All those genres apply to my story. Thanks for understanding. **

My eyes opened; for once I wake up before someone does it for me. I lay in my top bunk bed, staring at the ceiling.

Last night, dinner was good. Not that much people were there. The eating area is open for dinner from 6-9 PM so it's never crowded. We ate in peace while chatting.

"Ring! Ring! Ring!" a technical voice says. Really, it's a voice saying the word 'ring'. I hear Katsumi slowly shut it out. She mumbles. I then hear Emi get up pretty fast.

"Time to get up guys! A full school day ahead!" Emi says excitedly. She goes into the bathroom with her school uniform. I sit up.

"I'm up." I say. I hear Tomoko groan. I guess she's the sleepy type. "Let's leave Tomoko for a bit. What's the time?"

"8:02 AM." Katsumi replies as she puts on her glasses. I nod my head and slowly get down from my bunk bed- while yawning. Emi comes out of the bathroom wearing her green uniform and having her hair tied neatly.

"I'll go next, if I may." I say. Katsumi smiles. I get my uniform and go in the bathroom. I change fast- go restroom- and out I come. Katsumi stands up from her bed.

"My turn, and I might take a while, got to fix my hair." Katsumi says smiling.

"Take as much time as you want. We have it." Emi says. Katsumi then goes in the bathroom. I sit on the floor and fix my hair a bit with my fingers. I then grab my high socks and loafers to put on. I also get my schedule paper.

"Oh yeah, we didn't compare class schedules last night." I say. I give her my paper and she gets hers.

Emi gives a pout. "We only have physical education together, and all the level ones have it together."

"Too bad." I say truthfully. Tomoko is finally out of her bed now and Emi's putting on her socks and shoes. "Morning Tomoko." She just walks to her cubicle and Katsumi's out of the bathroom- hair fully curled.

"My schedule is swordsman one room three, general one room 5, physical education in the gym, and art one art room." Katsumi says. Tomoko goes in the bathroom.

"We have swordsman one and physical education together." I say.

"We have general one and physical education together." Emi says. Katsumi nods and smiles. She walks over to the cubicles and puts on her socks and shoes.

Tomoko's out of the bathroom, hair tied and uniform on. We're ready to go eat.

"8:19 AM. Let's take our school stuff with us than." Katsumi says. Breakfast is open from 6:40-8:40 AM. Class starts at 8:45 AM. I take what I got from Katsumi yesterday and they take their right amount and we're out of the dorm.

The eating area isn't too crowded now. I take pancakes, eggs, and milk. We all eat in peace at the table we ate yesterday. We marked it as our table.

"So Tomoko, what's your schedule? Have any classes with us?" I ask.

She looks the other way. "You'll all find out today, won't you?" I let her remark slide.

Right after I'm done eating, the first bell rings.

"We got to go, let's go!" I shout. My dorm mates eat fast in a minute and we're out of the eating area in another minute. "Where were the classrooms again?" I ask.

"This way." Katsumi says signaling us to follow. We go through the hall in between the MPR and the eating area. All the way straight, and we see a bunch of classrooms- equally separated. We go all the way at the end and turn left. A few steps and we're there. Room 3. "Okay, Emi and Tomoko, room 1, 2, or 4 are the other user classes. 4 is a little back and 1 and 2 ahead. Good luck~", Katsumi says. They say their goodbyes and we go in.

The classroom is white. White board and white walls. Our desks are brown though. Almost everyone is seated already, and even the teacher is here. The teacher is the same woman I saw at the tryouts. The one who was standing next to the sorcerer teacher and made the announcement. She's reading newspaper while biting into an apple.

Katsumi and I sit in the front row to the right- next to the exit. The final bell rings. The teacher drops her newspaper and finishes up her apple. She gets up.

"Morning. The name is Ume Tanaka. Just call me Tanaka. Welcome to your first day of Kumi Academy. I'm obviously your teacher, and I'm obviously a swordsman." Tanaka says. She has the same first name as my baby family member. She has this lazy vibe around her and she looks like she smokes- the cool way. "I'll follow you guys throughout your years here. That means, I'll be your sword teacher for the next five years. That's how the teacher system works. The teacher stays with you for all your years here. So last year, I was teaching 5th years that are gone now. Get it?"

Everyone nods his or her heads.

"Good. Now let me explain a few stuff. This year, you level ones are not going to get a real sword. You're getting a wooden one with white cloth-like stuff at the bottom." Tanaka says.

A few people give a long 'awww'.

"I know, it sucks, but when you get more into this school, you'll learn not to whine." she gives a small glare and continues, "You'll learn how to fight with the wooden sword." Tanaka says that as she wrote it on the white board. I nodded my head.

"Okay. In my class, I want notebooks. And I want you to write in pen. Of course you'll need white out then. Please have these supplies by the end of the week." Tanaka says. Uhhggg, I'll have to ask Katsumi and repay her then.

Tanaka continued, "This year you will learn about the swordsman. Before you do anything, you must learn. That's why I've decided you won't get your wooden swords until the end of February." A few groan. Tanaka glared a bit more.

"I'll let all the wimpy groans slide today. For homework today, I want you to write a paragraph in the first page of your notebook. Doesn't have to be in pen this time. The paragraph will be about a swordsman. What are the qualities of a swordsman? Do you have them? Make the paragraph from 5-10 sentence. If it's not completed, I'll make you write it in class. Now, for my classroom rules..." Tanaka went on and on until the bell rang.

Wow, an hour already? Everyone got up and a few say bye to Tanaka. She seems like a cool teacher. She also gave everyone a purple school bag, and I'm guessing those were passed out during every homeroom.

"Well, I'm off to room 5, and you're off to room 6. Let's walk there together then.", Katsumi says and I agreed. The halls are pretty crowded. We reach the room 5. I say my byes to Katsumi and I walk ahead a bit. I see room 6 and I go in.

The room is the same size as my previous class, but there are double the amounts of seats. It's like a mini auditorium. Every thing's connected and you go in between two long desks. Every desk has four seats, so every level of desks can have 8 people. The desks go higher and higher because of stairs. There are 7 levels of desks.

I see Tomoko's in my class; she's sitting and the highest desk. I go up there and sit next to her. She glares at me and I smile creepily. I recognize a few people who come in. I see a few boys who were in my previous class. I surprisingly see Daiki and smile. The bell rings, and everyone is seated already. I'm sitting next to strangers other than Tomoko. The teacher is finally in. It's a guy, and I've never seen him. He's wearing a lab coat though, which is weird.

"Good day. My name is Jun Kanezawa. This is general one room 6. There are two general classes, 50 in each so since there's 50 in here, it's okay." Kanezawa says. He counts fast. "You will all learn general math, grammar, history, and science. Level 1 is really easy, I expect everyone to do well." A few snicker. "We use pencils and erasers in this class. You'll need 4 folders and lots of line paper. Please have this at the end of the week." That's more borrowing. I really have to pay off soon.

"Now, for homework, I have very simple math problems. Four papers each of them with 100 questions. Each question only has numbers in the ones, so don't worry. My expectations for you guys are..." Kanezawa went on and on. He passed out the papers after he was done talking and then the bell rang. I got up and I heard Tomoko yawn. I'm kind of hungry. I see a few vending machines through the halls but you need points for that. Oh well, I'll just skip thoughts of hunger aside. I've done that tons of times with my family.

"Off to gym, Tomoko." I say smiling. She nods and we walk all the way left, even past my homeroom. We see a place that's titled boy's locker room and another place that's titles girl's locker room, which is a little smaller, but they're both pretty big. Try to guess which one we went in. When we're both in we see lockers all connected to the wall and a lot of benches in the middle. I see Katsumi and Emi gesturing for us to sit. We walk over and sit down when the bell rings. A teacher comes out of a mini room/office she has.

"Hello. I'm Miko Noto. Call me Noto." Noto says. "This year level ones will focus on basic sports. Now, come get your PE uniforms. Every uniform is black but has a similar style to your school uniforms. Tell me your size. Now, line up!" Noto took out a big box full of uniforms and set it on a table. Everyone got up and went into the long line. Well not exactly long, there are only 27 girls.

"I have no idea what my size is." I say to my dorm mates.

"Just say small. The PE uniform is adjustable anyways, and you look like a small." Katsumi responses. I nod my head and we all wait in line in silence. In no time, we get our uniforms and everyone is back sitting on the benches.

"Okay, now." Noto says as she took out a wand. She's a sorcerer then. She raised her wand and many of the gray lockers turned white. "The white lockers are taken. Pick any locker that is gray and remember you will have it for the rest of your time here. All you have to do to activate it is pulling your hand back and pushing your bracelet into the gap it has on the locker. It will open and close your locker after you activate it. Go find a locker now then!"

My dorm mates and I all found lockers fairly close to each other. It's better to have a safe distance when changing. I picked a locker that had the number 123 on it and it was in the middle row of lockers on the left wall. I put my PE clothes in the locker and we went back to the benches. On my way to the benches, the scarf girl and I crashed. We didn't fall, but her PE clothes fell. She was in front of a group of girls, one being Mana.

"I'm sorry," the girl- who had a blue uniform says looking down and picking up her clothes.

"It's my fault." I replied. Scarf girl had empty turquoise eyes with bright green hair. Her hair started straight, and it was curly at the bottom. So her mother is a royal guard? She's pretty different from Katsumi though.

A bunch of the girls behind her asked if she was okay- which she obviously was. Some gave me a couple glares and I just ignored the fact they were so obsessed with her. My dorm mates were ahead of me and they waited for me to come to them. A walked over and they didn't talk about what just happened like casual people. After a few minutes, everyone was back seated on the benches. Noto came out of her small PE office and started to speak.

"Now, for the locker rules..." and she went on and on as usual. After long talks about rules, the bell rang. "Have a healthy day~", Noto says smiling. Everyone got out talking.

"I think she was nice." Emi says.

"Seems like an easy grade, but hey, we just need to maintain a C or higher. In this school." I say.

"Come on, let's go to the eating area. It's lunch time." Katsumi says. We walked a long way, went up the stairs, and finally reached the place. We sat down and the lunch was amazing as usual. As I got my tray I bumped into Daiki's floating chair. We both almost spilled our food but caught it just in time.

Daiki smiled. "I'm so sorry." I say in a mocking tone. Our chairs started to move again. My dorm mates went to our marked table.

"So who was that guy?" Katsumi asked.

"Yeah, did you know him?" Emi asked. Tomoko's just sitting and eating.

"Yep, he's the cousin I told you about. The one that's in my so-called family." I say casually.

"Oh, cool. He looks nice~", Emi says. I blushed a bit.

"Okay, just keep talking about him right in front of me." I say sarcastically. Emi shrugs.

There's a few seconds of silence and we all hear a burst of laughter across the room. I look back, about 5 tables back. The table is crowded, but it's not scarf girl's table- it's a different one. Everyone is crowded around- surprisingly- the coffee guy I met during the try-outs. This time, the person in the center of attention is smiling- unlike sad scarf girl.

He had a green uniform. The coffee guy- Ken was smiling so gently- almost like a girl. He's not my type- except maybe the red hair and purple eyes. Other than that- he's off my list. Wait a minute; do I even have a list?

"Hello? You there Shizu?" Katsumi asks, breaking my daze.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Who's the red haired guy over there?" I asked that even though I already knew his first name.

"That is the famous son of the principal, Ken Takeda. He's a level one like us." Katsumi says.

No way! He's the person I'm serving after school. At least he looks easy enough to work with. This will probably be no problem. I went back to the real world. My dorm mates talked about how our school was so far. The lunch bell rang after talking for so long. We all got up and went towards different ways for our enrichment class. The library was to the right of the Eating Area.

The library was elegant. The bookcases looked glossed and it wasn't two stories but it was wide. The bell rang and 20 people are in- it's twenty per class for enrichment right? I saw a couple of people whose faces I remembered but there was only one person I actually kind of knew. Ken Takeda. Of course it would be the gentlemen who studied in the library. A woman got up from a desk in the middle of the library and went over to us.

"Hello. Good afternoon. I am Keiko Hano. Call me Hano. I am not your teacher. Study Hall has no teacher. I am your supervisor and the school librarian. Here are the rules I play by. If I tell you 'strike' for any reason, it means you get a strike. If you get three by the end of the week, I will give you double your homework. If you don't bring it back the next day, I'll give you detention. Got it? Now, you can go wherever you want in the library. Handle the books with care. Dismissed." Hano says.

I went over to the far, far end and started doing my homework. If I have to work for Ken until possibly 6 PM, I better finish my homework every day here. I sat down at a normal table that can fit four people. I saw Ken sit down followed by 3 people. He still has friends even here. All he did was whisper and smile gently to them.

I sigh and take out my homework. I finished the paragraph for homeroom and it was filled with BS. The paragraph still did take long, it's not easy writing BS. I then quickly did my math homework. The bell rang right after I organized my bag and put my stuff back in. I looked at the big library clock. 2:25 PM. I quickly walked out of the library.

I see students coming out of their class. This is dangerous; I should put the mask on in the bathroom. I went to the restroom, making sure no one was in the whole bathroom and went into a stall. I didn't lock the stall but I leaned against the door. I swiftly took out the mask and put it on me. It felt a bit magical and in a second- I had a black uniform and my hair was tied in a ponytail and dark blue.

I then took out the teleport card. I tapped on it three times and I was suddenly right in front of a door. I snapped out of my gawking, and knocked on the door.

"The door's unlocked." Ken says. I put on an emotionless personally- that's what I decided to do first. I opened the door. Wow, this place is huge. I saw a huge couch and a coffee table 10 steps forward. And I saw Ken on the couch. Whoa. He was in casual clothes already. Ken was lying on the couch like a sloth. He looks a bit out of character. He made a side glance at me and smiled gently.

"So you're my server?" he says smiling.

"Yes, I am." I replied bluntly.

"And so, I have kind of complete control over you?" he asked still smiling gently. I nodded my head kind of confused. "Ehh, that's good then." Ken's voice turned into a mocking voice and his smile turned into a demon's. Okay, I'm confused now and I'm already next to the coffee table.

"I'm Ken Takeda, and I'm the principal's son. Please don't gawk over my awesome self. I love coffee and yo-yos. How bout you? Hmmm, nothing about your body I can make fun of." he says. Something inside me almost burst, but I'll show him. I'll show those arrogant two-faced people like him! I didn't smile or show any emotion at all.

"I am not permitted to say anything Takeda. I am just here to serve." I say.

"Okay, I'll call you Mask Maid. Cool name right? Wait, I don't need to ask." he says. He laughed like an evil loser. He stopped laughing. "By the way, don't tell anyone about my awesome personality. It's between you and me~" I was so, extremely, close to snickering. He then got a real threatening face. "You wouldn't want to lose your job would you? Street mutts are always hungry for money. You see, I hate any pieces of shit that are on the street."

I stopped my fists from tightening, but I gritted my teeth. I'm going to have absolutely no emotions towards this son of a-. I stopped myself.

"I know you're trying to bottle it up Mask Maid. But there's one thing I'm certain to do to you." Ken gave the most evil smile; this gave me small goose bumps. "I'm going to make you crack."

**Okay, how was that? If you have something to say, review. If you have nothing to say, I really don't care. If you have something to do right now, go do it. If you have nothing to do right now, I suggest you watch the anime K-ON, that anime will make you smile.**


	6. Chapter 5

**This is terrible, just terrible! So I was watching the new episode of an anime called Blue Exorcist (great anime btw), and I find out the main character's going to train with a wooden sword, just like this story! And I was watching another anime called No. 6, and they have metal bracelets too! WHY? So just to be safe, I did not copy from Blue Exorcist or No.6!**

The dorm lights are on, I can tell through my eyelids. Who's going? How many are going? I wait until the person when out and I got up. I look straight, and I see the digital wall clock and calendar Katsumi bought for us. 7:58 AM, February 15th, Tuesday. I rub my eyes and get down the latter.

Katsumi and Emi are both gone. Katsumi's probably getting some fresh air, and Emi's probably practicing for her first basketball game. Honestly, we all doubt she'll get to play.

The sports are separated like this: Level 1, 3, 5 vs. Level 2, 4. There is however a small chance she will play, I heard level ones only watch the whole first year. They always divide the amount of girls and boys to play evenly. Well, it's not like I can watch, the game is right after school. I'll be stuck in Ken-Ville. I sigh.

Tomoko is still sleeping. I shook her shoulder. "Time to wake up Tomoko~ You've already gotten 3 detentions for sleeping in." She grumbled, and slowly got up.

I took my school uniform and went to the bathroom. I grabbed my mini comb and brushed my hair.

I then took my hygiene spray, and sprayed it on my mouth 2 times. The spray is great, it'll clean your teeth and your breath, the ultimate spray! Yeah, that was the advertisement I saw in the school store. I go out of the bathroom and Tomoko's right outside.

"I'll see you at our table then." I say smiling. She gives a small nod with a glare that just doesn't match. I raise my eyebrow, but I keep walking to the door. I go all the way out and I'm about to go into the eating area. I almost bump into someone, and unfortunately- it's Mana. One of scarf girl's followers from the day before school started. She's in all of my classes, which annoys me.

"Hello Sanu Shizu." she says giving a snare. You know those people who hate you for no good reason? That's Mana. She hates how Tanaka kind of favors me, and she hates street people like me. Trust me, she tries to sabotage me.

Ryuta told me to not stand out, so I try my best to avoid her- or not.

She's putting one leg out for me to trip on. I quickly stepped on her leg while looking straight ahead. "Ow! She stepped on my foot!" Mana yells in that annoying voice.

I take a deep breath and put a big gentle smile on. "I'm sorry, I was just walking, and your foot was sadly in the way. So very sorry." Wow, Ken's fake self has changed me a bit. She gave a grunt, but didn't take it any farther because people were staring at us. I go back to my regular face and keep walking. I jump into a floating chair, feeling happy. I get scrambled eggs, a small cup of strawberries, and milk. I go over to my dorm's signature table and Katsumi's there with a newspaper.

"Hello. Emi already ate?" I ask.

She gives me a smile. "Yep. She's pretty energetic today. Big game after school."

"I think we've all noticed that." I say, looking around the eating area. All the Valentine's Day banners are gone. Flyers are everywhere now about a basketball AND soccer game today, so you can pick to watch one. I heard Daiki's in soccer, another game I'll miss. "So, can I see the school paper?"

Katsumi nods her head and hands it to me. I groan, another story on that incident. "Come on! It's already been three weeks!" I complain.

Near the end of January, two level 3 students were found unconscious and pretty bloody in the MPR. They said they think they were in a trance. The principal didn't know what to believe so he just had a long talk and that was it. The information is only within the school so no one can panic. The headline is stupid: **Another Exclusive Look at Last Month's Incident**. Too typical.

Tomoko is now joining us to eat. The three of us talk for a bit and then Katsumi gets up.

"Well, the bell's going to ring in 4 minutes, so let's head to class." Katsumi says. I agree, but Tomoko stays behind to eat a little more.

"All right then, don't be late~" I say smiling. We walked off and towards our classroom. When we're both in of our homeroom, the bell rings. I open the door for us.

"Morning Shizu, Katsumi." Tanaka says while eating an apple. I've noticed she loves apples.

"Morning Tanaka." Katsumi and I say in sync. We both sit in the seats we've sat in on the first day of school. The second bell rang and class is now in session.

Throughout the past one month and a half, the swordsman class has never touched a bokken- which I found out was a wooden sword- yet. We're still learning about swordsman, just swordsman. Tanaka says that if we keep going at this pace, we'll get our wooden swords at the beginning of March.

Today we're learning the underhand and overhand samurai slash techniques, pretty interesting. The overhand has more strength, and the underhand has more speed.

Right now, we're learning about the samurai slash techniques, because we learned about the knight slash techniques last month. We have to learn about samurais and knights before we choose at the beginning of next year, how boring. I still don't know which one I want to be, there's so many differences.

The bell rang. Our homework is to write a two-paragraph paper on the similarities and differences of slash techniques between a samurai and a knight. I sighed and got up.

"I'll be off to room 5, good luck in room 6." Katsumi says smiling. I nod and groan. My general teacher- Kanezawa- is one of the toughest. I gather my stuff, put it away, give Tanaka a small wave, and head out to general 1. I go in room 6, and I see Kanezawa on his chair, drinking tea. I go to my ARRANGED seat, on the 3rd row. Fortunately, I happen to sit next to Daiki and his dorm mate, Genji, who's a summoner like Daiki himself. He always smiles and he's quite cheerful- like Daiki without the self-admiration.

"Hey there star swordsman.", Genji says. He must've heard Tanaka had a liking to me, well I think a lot have heard.

"Hey there."I say, dragging the 'hey'. I give him my math homework last night. "Go ahead, if you must."

"Thanks! Daiki might need it too, and here he comes." Genji replied. I looked ahead, and there he was, looking a bit nervous.

"Hi, I already did my homework, so it's alright." Daiki says sitting down quietly.

"What's wrong man?" I asked.

"I'll tell you. Mister nervous right here is worrying about the soccer game. That's really, kind of stupid.", Genji says.

"It's not stupid. I should be nervous." Daiki replied to his conversation with me.

"Two things to say bro. One, it's the first game. Two, you're probably not going to play." Genji says.

"But I'm pretty good!" Daiki argued. There goes the conceited side. The final bell rang.

"Tell me how it goes." I say as Kanezawa got up from his desk.

"Alright, calm yourselves. Lesson starts now." Kanezawa says. Another weird lab coat he's wearing today.

Through the past school year, we've been learning the subject math. For 2 months we learn each subject, with 4 subjects. After 8 months past, we start mixing in all the subjects and get ready for the finals. The finals can grant you points, so I'm going to try real hard.

Speaking of points, I've gotten some good amount. The first ten can serve for a day- 6 hours for 5 points. So each weekend you can get up to ten points.

At first, I was too slow to be part of the first ten. Then, I made a schedule to wake up at the right time. Emi always comes with me, and she wakes me up. Sometimes we make it, sometimes we don't. If we both don't have spots, we both don't go too. All you have to do is polish floors or sweep bathrooms. The school is so big that they need 10 people.

So far, I've been the 10 people 8 times. That means I've made 40 points. Of course, I had to spend a lot. I needed supplies and I needed to pay Katsumi back. So now, I have 3 points. I think I've used them mostly on school supplies. Especially this class, 4 folders, line paper, graph paper, pencils, sharpeners, and erasers! So stupid.

I knife came my way. I quickly- and barely- dodged it even though I knew it wouldn't have hit me. My eyes widen. The knife is now stuck to the desk above mine. (The desks get higher and higher like stairs.) Everyone is staring at me. I give a nervous smile.

"Pay more attention in class, Shizu." Kanezawa says. Others laugh nervously. He's way too strict and scary. He wears a lab coat because he puts knives in there. Stinkin' ninja. I sigh.

"Yes, sir." I say. Then we all go back to class time. In math, we're learning percents, decimals, and fractions. I say it's simple, but others disagree. Just wait until language arts, I'm terrible at that. We have tests once a month and they are decent enough. You know, multiple choice is always the best.

For homework today, we have 300 problems. 100 for each: dividing percent, fractions, and decimals. Not as bad as last week.

The bell rang. Everyone in my class is heading to PE now. I wait for Tomoko and we kind of walk together. It's really crowded right now

Finally, we reach the PE girl lockers. We both go over to our lockers, Emi and Katsumi already there. All 4 of us quickly change. Thank goodness our lockers aren't that close. On second thought, thank goodness we only have 27 girls in this class. I wonder how the boys fit… I quickly dismissed this thought. Soon we were all changed. All the girls went outside after 5 more minutes of sitting on the benches.

Today, we went out to the grass field. Four laps equal a mile. We've been running since the month of February. January was just our height, weight, and etc. Now, this month, everyday we have to run 12 laps- 3 miles. Our time is 40 minutes. We have to somehow pace ourselves. I'm also 4 or 5 minutes away from failing. Oh, and out of the 4 of us, we split into 2 groups and run together. The fast ones run together, Emi and Katsumi. The not-so-fast-yet-not-slow ones run together, Tomoko and I. It's fun, although Tomoko rarely talks.

After running, everyone goes back in and change. I stretch after I'm done changing back.

"That was a nice run!" Emi exclaims.

"I agreed, got the classroom feeling away from me. Of course, there's lunch next too." Katsumi says.

"Now that, I'm looking forward to." I say. Tomoko nods. The bell rings and we all head to the eating area. I went on the floating chair and for lunch I got mac n' cheese with small broccolis mixed in. I also got a brownie, probably left over from Val Day yesterday. We all sat down on our table. We talked about classes for a bit, and then we talked about the basketball and soccer game. Then we came to an interesting topic.

"You guys all know the user tournaments right?" Katsumi asked.

"Yeah, that competition you can sign up for to get 100 points!" Emi says, somewhat pumped up. I don't know why though.

Here's how it goes: level fives have four tournaments each year, level fours have three tournaments each year, level threes have two tournaments each year, level twos have one tournament each year, and level ones (us) have no tournaments each year. That's just the way it is.

"What about it?" Tomoko asked. Yay, she talked.

"Well, my art teacher, Himura, says the level five tournament was next week!" Katsumi says smiling.

"Really? I wish we could watch!" Emi says. Unfortunately, you are only allowed to watch your level in tournaments. But we can still find out who the winner is.

"Why did your teacher tell you? I mean, it's usually only between the level class." I say.

"Well, Himura's very, how do I say this? Oh, talkative." Katsumi says.

The bell rang. We all split up and wished Emi good luck because we won't talk to her until after the game. Library time. I walk to the library and Hano was sitting at her desk as usual. I went over to my signature table; all the way at the back.

If Mana ever bothers me, I can give her comebacks without Hano ever knowing. And I doubt Ken will ever come to me; he doesn't have a clue who I am. Plus, he hates street people like me and he wants to hide it. The last bell rang.

Everyday, I just do my homework. There's a computer room in the back, if we need to type something. If I finish my homework, I find books about users and how to be a better one. If I don't finish, after Ken's place, I go back to my dorm room and do my homework on my bed. Sometime my dorm mates are there, and sometimes they're not.

Today, I finished my math homework, but not my swordsman homework. We need to write two paragraphs, and I only wrote one, then the bell rang.

I quickly went out of the library and into a nearby restroom. I went restroom first, and then put on my mask. This time, my hair was dark blue and in pigtails. As usual, I took out my teleport card, taped it thrice, and was right in front of Ken's room. I took a deep breath, and opened the door. Ken was of course, slouched on his couch with casual clothes on.

"Oh? Here already. That's the service I like, Mask Maid." Ken says grinning evilly.

"How may I serve you?" I say, ignoring his words. He gave a more seriously look, than shook it off.

"Well, yesterday, I made you sort out the chocolates I got from my lovely, and easy fans. I then made you make a list of all the names that sent me the chocolates. Today, I want you to make a letter, using my computer at the corner. Make a thank you note to all the poor girls that gave their hearts to me. Send the same exact letter, except the names. You can go now." Ken says. I gave a mental face palm. What a loser.

Ken proceeded to playing with his yo-yo and eating the chocolates. I typed up an absolutely sweet thank you note. After 10 minutes, I gave Ken the rough draft.

"Hmmm, nice, nice. Doesn't say much, but still sweet. It's almost as if a piece of shit didn't write it. But unfortunately, you did write it." Ken says mockingly. Always the shit word eh? I quickly went back to the real world.

"Anything to do now?" I ask.

"Here, have a chocolate. Maybe it'll make you fat." Ken says, tossing me a chocolate. I was pissed now. Not because he wanted me fat, but because he would give me something a girl made with love. Well, unless it was Mana's chocolate, but it isn't.

I tossed the chocolate back on the coffee table. "I think you should eat them. Girls made them with love." I say that very emotionlessly even though I shouldn't have.

Ken looked at me, a bit surprisingly, but then shook it off. "Hahaha! Hahaha! You think I would care about that? They made it, yes with love, but now it's mine. I can do whatever I want with it! Even this!" Ken shouted as he threw one chocolate box on the ground and stepped on it. I stood there, bewildered, but you couldn't tell through my mask. Ken stopped stepping on the chocolate and made a seriously face.

"Mask Maid, don't go against my orders. If I tell you to do something, you better damn do it! Especially since I gave you something to gain. Not like street people are you? The ones that just go around and beg. Now, go clean up the chocolate, print out the typed pages. Make sure every letter has the right name. Then you are dismissed." Ken says with a creepy smile.

I quickly went to work and finally, I got 56 letters printed out. I checked the time on Ken's computer, 3:35. I wonder how the basketball and soccer game's going. I think I might make it at this rate. I wonder why Ken didn't go, maybe an order from his dad. I put the letters on the coffee table and left his dorm. I'm guessing Ken will just pass them out tomorrow.

When I went out the dorm I sighed. I then saw the weirdest thing. A shadow moved outside the academy. (There's a window on the left of the outside of Ken's room.)

I swear it was right next to the window. I quickly forgot about it and walked to the MPR to watch the basketball game. Too bad the soccer game is out on the field. They are too far apart. I looked at my surroundings, took off my mask, and went in the MPR.

**How was it? Make a review if you have something to say. I'm actually done with the whole level 1 'book', but I'm doing some major editing!**


	7. Chapter 6

**Hotel Kumi, April 3rd, 10:47 PM.**

"HAHA, so we attack tonight?" a dark green haired guy says.

"Yeah, it'll be tonight, in about 30 minutes." Another dark green haired guy says licking his lips.

"Which level should we take tonight, brother?" the first guy says.

"I was thinking the innocent level ones tonight. And let's take males." the second brother says.

"Sounds like a plan. HAHAHA, I love playing this game!" the first guy replied.

**Kumi Academy, April 4****th****, 8:26 AM, Girl Dorm 26**

"AHHH, late late!" I shout. I'm changing into my uniform, not caring that Tomoko was in the room. Why would I care about changing in the bathroom right now? I bet Tomoko's going to get detention today.

I quickly take a leak, spray that teeth thing, and run out of the dorm with a quick bye to Tomoko. I did try to wake her, really, but it was hard. Last night, all 4 of us were practicing for our exam this Friday. Every three months, every teacher gives you an exam, on the same day! Well, not for enrichment, that's an extra.

I was practicing my wooden sword, Katsumi was asking me questions while I was practicing, Emi was practicing her wooden kunai aim (yes, shinobis get wooden weapons on the first year too), and Tomoko was playing her guitar that really didn't help in my time of stress.

I pass by the E.A., which is short for eating area, when the first bell rings. This made me more frustrated, so I run faster. I run all the way to the back of the school and into my classroom. I see Katsumi waving at me. I give a sigh of relief as I sit down. The final bell rings.

"Pretty close this time." Katsumi says smiling.

"Yeah, I didn't even get to go to the E.A., I'm starving." I replied.

"Then you can have this." A voice- Tanaka says. I looked up, and there she was. That was almost like a ninja even though we're swordsmen. Tanaka has a mini-milk carton. I take it while smiling.

"Thanks Tanaka." I say. She mumbles a small 'you're welcome' and starts class.

So, in swordsman class we finally got our bokkens last month. I still remember that day, when things broke in the classroom.

We're careful now, plus if you harm someone with it for fun, you don't have your sword for a month. I don't have it today because we can only bring it to class when Tanaka tells us to.

I mentioned that a wooden sword's power is weak to Tanaka. And she says this: "A wooden sword can hurt as much as a real sword if you want it to!" For some reason I know, I'll never forget those words.

Today, we're reviewing about what techniques you can use in different situations. This whole week, we're reviewing for the exams.

"Okay, Katsumi." Tanaka called.

"Yes teacher." Katsumi says as she stood up.

"What method do you use in the dark when you are targeting someone?" Tanaka asked.

"You use something to distract the person and then go for it." Katsumi says.

"Very good, and on the test I just need the keyword, distract." Tanaka says. Katsumi sat down.

Class went on and the bell rang. I sighed, time for Kanezawa. I say my goodbye to Katsumi and headed to room 6. As usual, Genji was already there and Daiki was.

"Hey the- WOAH."I say freaked out. Genji's eyes were outlined with dark holes. He looked dead, and by that I mean tired. "What happened to you?" I asked while laughing a bit.

"Haha, very funny. Well, it seems my egg was whining all night." Genji says. (A/N: Remember that savagers have animal companions. Genji, Daiki, and Tomoko are all savagers. They take care of their egg until it hatches witin 10-12 months.)

"Then I have a feeling the animal will be just like you." I say teasing. Genji just glares and I hand him my homework for him to copy again. Then Daiki came with the same eyes as Genji. Okay, this time it was reasonable to laugh.

"It's all that guy's fault." Daiki says as he pointed at Genji. "His egg ruined my beautiful eyes! Homework please~" What a mood changer. The second bell rang and Kanezawa was going to review math today.

"This is the vice principal of Kumi Academy. Level one and two report to the MPR this period. Level three, four, and five report to the MPR next period. This is mandatory. I repeat. Level one and two report to the MPR this period. Level three, four, and five report to the MPR next period. This is mandatory. Thank you." The announcer suddenly says.

Kanezawa sighed. "Class will be dismissed here then. For homework, make an example of the two graphs: line graph and bar graph. Write explanations for each too. I'll collect yesterday's and today's homework tomorrow. Dismissed." Then we got up.

"Yes! So we don't have to turn in the homework!" Genji says excitedly as if he'd just been revived from the dead.

"Here's your homework then Shizu." Daiki says as he handed it to me. Then the two were off. I went over to Tomoko.

"So were you late to homeroom?" I asked Tomoko as we were walking to the MPR. She gave a small smirk, which was a lot coming from Tomoko.

"Nope." She says. I gave her an uncertain look.

"Isn't that impossible? I mean you'd had to run. Plus, you had to drop off your egg at the daycare. Unless…" I say as she opened her school bag and there I saw an egg. I gasped. "You did not!"

"Well, I did." She answered. "So I was thinking we sneak the egg right now."

"Gasp. Is Tomoko asking me to accompany her? I am shocked." I say mockingly.

"Yeah, well, just accept the offer already." Tomoko says a little impatient.

"Well, we're already behind! We have to make sure no one spots us! How can we get to the daycare which is below the stairs that lead to the MPR?" I asked.

"I don't know. Have any shortcuts?" Tomoko asked. I was surprised she didn't look distressed, but I knew she actually was.

Okay, I did have the teleport card. The dorms are right next to the school store and daycare. I bit my lip. If Tomoko's egg was found, she'll get detention and if we try to sneak it, it'll be double detention. Whatever! School is about making mistakes and taking chances!

I took Tomoko's hand. "Tomoko, you gotta trust me. Ask me no questions and keep this a secret! Now, close your eyes!" I say. She closed her eyes and I took out the card. I tapped it thrice and we were right in front of Ken's dorm. Tomoko opened her eyes.

"Where are we?" Tomoko asked, looking around.

"Remember, no questions." I say. "Come on!" We went out of the dorm area and into the daycare. While the daycare people were looking away, we quickly and quietly dropped of the egg in an egg bed thing. We then ran to the stairs leading to the MPR.

"Hello Sanu and Watanabe." A voice says on our left. Our heads turned like we were dead. It was the principal. He looked at us- mostly me with piercing eyes.

"Good morning sir." Tomoko and I say in sync. We were both extremely nervous.

"Late for the meeting? I won't tolerate this the next time." Takeda answered. Stupid principal who has a son that's a douche bag.

"I won't happen again." Tomoko says as I nod.

The principal then nods and went up the stairs. We both sign and go up the stairs moments later. We go in and everyone looks at us. The lights then dim. We figure out the level ones were at the left side, and level twos at the right. Emi was waving at us and we sat down next to her and Katsumi. Takeda went to a podium in the front.

He cleared his throat. "As many of you know by now, we've had weird things going around once a month. Two students who don't have any similarities are taken at night to this very room. One is unconscious and controlled, while another has no choice but to fight. The doors are locked from the inside, so you can only go in, not out. Unfortunately, the people who did this did it again last night. After the fourth time around, we will start to acknowledge this." Wow, he talks a lot. All around the room, you can hear murmurs.

Principal Takeda clears his throat again. "We've named this case the monthly mystics. If anyone has information on anything about this, contact a staff member immediately. This is a green alert." A few people gasped, and I roll my eyes.

There are 3 alert colors: red, orange, and green. Green is mild danger, orange is great danger, and red is extreme danger. Seriously, green danger is not that bad.

"We will have guards now, around the school at night. I'm sure you student are capable of protecting yourselves during daytime." Takeda says. "Now a few guidelines…" And on and on he went. The bell rang, as did the assembly. 2nd period supposedly ended, so time for 3rd period- PE. Fortunately, the level ones had PE to themselves, so it wouldn't be as crowded.

"The new curfew is terrible!" Tomoko says as we walked out.

"True, 9 PM is early, but at least we get more sleep." Emi says.

"No, I'll just be staying awake, lying in bed." Tomoko folded her arms. We were about to turn in the hallway leading to the classrooms that lead to the locker rooms. For the first time I noticed another hallway going straight.

"Hey, guys. Where does that hallway lead to?" I asked.

"That", Katsumi says, "leads to the teacher dorms. Rumors say they have one dorm our size all to their selves." I pouted for a second until someone shoved me. I almost fell, but got my balance.

"Move it! People are trying to get through, Sanu." I turned around, and it was Mana. We came face to face. I roll my eyes, and she squints hers.

"I don't get intimidated by eyes with makeup on them, girl. And please, call me Shizu." I say in a mocking tone.

She gave a little 'hmmp' and walked on with girls following her. One of them was the scarf girl, obviously surrounded as usual. We looked at each other for a split second and looked away. After those groups of girls past us, we continued walking without saying a word. We reached the locker rooms just as the second bell rang.

In PE, we're doing track and field right now. Our exam is to run a mile in less than 11 minutes. Now that, I can probably do, I'm going to run a mile tomorrow morning to make sure. Today, we're doing hurdles. I still remember during tryouts for the academy, there was a hurdle section. Good times~

"Whew, that was a lot of jumping, don't you guys think?" Emi says while we were changing back. I nodded. We were all breathless from it still, well most of us at least.

"I'm going to the bathroom." I say as I finished changing. I went into the locker room restroom; while I heard two other girls come in.

"Did you see Arisa try to go through the hurdles?" a voice I recognized as Mana says. They were probably putting on more makeup.

'I know, she looked like a retard." a voice says. I knew the girl from her voice, I just forgot her name.

"And we had to go encourage her! I swear we should just ditch her." Mana says.

"Come on! We need to get closer to her so we can get connections though!" the no name girl says.

"Fine, but we will ditch her eventually." Mana reassures. Then the two idiots left.

I came out of a bathroom stall, and so did the scarf girl. Okay, I'll just call her Arisa now. I knew she knew what they said, and she knew I knew. But I say nothing. We just washed her hands, and out of the restroom. I'm sure she'll take care of it. Right?

Lunch passed, and so did enrichment. Study hall was getting a bit quiet these days, since exams are in a few days. So, I get more peace and quiet.

I luckily finished all my homework by the time the bell rang. I went into the bathroom, and put on my mask. I had red hair tied with low pigtails. I tapped my teleport card thrice, and nothing happened. What?

After a few seconds, I concluded that the teleport card only works once a day. I sighed. The stupid principal didn't each mention.

I went out of the bathroom, and looked up, down, right and left. So many people were walking because school ended. I'm not going to try running with this on. Plus, most people are running towards the dorms, which are next to the boy special dorms. I guess I'll just stay in this bathroom stall for a bit…

Okay, 20 minutes passed, that must be enough. I looked around the outside of the bathroom. All clear. I ran super fast, straight to the dorms. I ran so fast I bumped into someone. The person dropped stuff.

"Oww!" the person says. Wait. I know that voice.

"Daiki?" I asked. He had on the same mask as me, and the same red hair color. He looked at me, examining me.

"Shizu?" he asked. We both laughed at the same time.

"So you have to work for someone to?" I say still laughing.

"Mhmm." Daiki says as we both stopped laughing. I helped pick up his things, which belonged in a bag.

"You went to the school store?" I questioned.

"Yeah, for the person I serve. She's pretty nice, but silent most of the time." He replied.

"Lucky ducky! I have a stupid idiot." I say in response. Daiki laughs.

"Well, you two make the perfect match then. I'll see you then." He says. I pout.

"Okay, you too. Bye~" I say. He waves to me. Well, meeting with my cousin might make me feel better of what I have to do next. I was in front of Ken's door, knocked, and opened it. Ken was drinking coffee while sitting on his couch.

"Ehhh, you're late today. Were you scared to come?" Ken asked.

"Just a mishap sir. How may I serve you?" I replied. And then Ken went on and on about something totally unreasonable for me to do. I swear, this guy is a huge douche bag. He does look kind of hot, but still, he's an ungrateful arrogant bastard.

I sigh, this is not me, I don't act like this. Why am I even being self-conscious? I sound like my whole life is dramatic.

"Hey! Are you listening Mask Maid?" Ken asks, snapping me out of my trance.

"Sorry, how much cream did you want in your coffee again?" I ask.

"Listen carefully! I want the square root of 100, multiplied by 2, and divided by 5 small cups of cream. Now move your ass!" he says, smirking.

"You could have just said 4." I answered smugly. He gives a different face.

"So you do have some brains under all your crap." Ken replied. I walked over to his coffee machine station to make his.

This whole routine of him cussing and me trying to half-ignore half-fight back is getting old. Only time will tell if this after school life with him will ever change.

"Hurry your ass up, Mask Maid." Ken says.

"I'm on it sir." I replied.


	8. Chapter 7

**Okay, before you start reading I have something to say. This chapter is kind of part 1 of two chapters. They are both in one day. It's mostly filler stuff but has some plot in it. Just wanted to do something different then Shizu and her adventures in the academy. Cause really, that's no adventure. Enjoy~**

"Are you completely flat on the ground?" Emi asks.

"Yep, I'm ready." I reply.

"Okay, I'm going to lift your legs up." Emi says as she grabbed my ankles and started lifting them.

"That tickles a bit!" I say wiggling.

"Okay, I'll try to un-tickle it then Shizu." Emi says laughing. "Now, use your elbows, and try to see if you can do it." I felt blood coming to my face, because after all, I'm upside down. Slowly, with sheer strength, I made my hands completely straight.

"Umm, Emi?" I say

"Yes?" she answers.

"I'm starting to get tired." I say sweating.

"Okay, okay. Do you think you're ready for me to let go?" she asks.

"I think so, yeah." I say as I prepare for her hands to let go.

"Kay, prepare yourself. If you drop, I'll be there. We could always go to a doctor if anything gets broken. It'll heal in n-" Emi says but Tomoko cuts her off.

"Will you just let go already? I think Shizu can handle it." Tomoko says. She just got up of her bed.

"Fine. 1, 2, 3!" Emi shouts as she lets go. My hands start to go weak, but I manage to balance them in a few seconds.

"Yes! On Saturday, May 28th, uhh what time is it?" I ask still on my handstand, walking with my hands a bit.

Emi looks at the wall clock we have in our dorm. "9:57 AM" she says.

"Okay. On Saturday, May 28th, at 9:57 AM, I Shizu Sanu, has done a handst- woah!" I shout as I start to fall. Emi manages to catch me before I land my face flat on the ground.

"That was close." Emi says.

"You think?" Tomoko says with her eyebrows raised. Katsumi comes out of the restroom and Tomoko goes in right after her to change.

"I'm done." Katsumi says fixing her glasses. "Let's eat breakfast and then to Kumi Town Square."

"Agreed." I say. "Although, I can't believe I agreed to this."

There's a story of how this all happened. Let me first start by saying coincidently, my dorm mates and I all have our birthdays during May. Mine's May 18nd, Emi's May 25th, Tomoko's May 21st, and Katsumi's May 10th. To celebrate this, we waited until the last weekend of May to hang out in the city.

It took a long time for them to convince me to ditch my weekend school cleaning, but it didn't take much for Emi to give in. So that's why I didn't wake up early in the morning to line up and clean for once. Oh well, there were times like this when I was too late to work for the school, so I'd just train with my wooden sword. Today will be different.

Tomoko just came out of the restroom changed. "Let's go!" Emi says. We all head out, not wearing our uniforms. Katsumi gave me clothes for my birthday, so I'm wearing overall shorts with a plain white sweatshirt below. I'm also wearing my sandals I kept in my cube since the first day of school. It felt nice wearing clothes like this.

We go up the school stairs and there's the E.A.. On the weekend, the E.A. is only open for breakfast and dinner. From 8-11 AM for breakfast, and from 8-11 PM for dinner. As I'm about to go in I hear a laugh. It's coming from the right, probably on the balcony. You see, the MPR and E.A. are in the center of the 2nd floor.

On the far right is the newspaper class, or as my dorm mates and I like to call it, the overdramatic club of weirdos. They will storm into your dorm room to ask a single question and invade your space. I sigh at them. The right also has the amazing library I always go to.

On the far left is the art room; the walls are filled will creative drawings. Also, there's the music room; there's always a stupid metronome going on in there- or maybe just a loud clock.

And lastly, there're three balconies, one for each side of the 2nd floor. (Of course, since you're upstairs one side is missing) It's always taken during lunch or afterschool or even the morning, but usually never on weekends.

"Shizu?" Katsumi asks.

"Huh? What? Oh." I say. "I'll be back you guys." I walk off to the balcony, because it seems I'm the only person that heard. They call my name as I walk off, but then they walk into the E.A.. I reach the right side balcony. It's Daiki and Genji. Daiki is just laughing while Genji just yawned. Daiki's- oh gosh he's taping the balcony rail.

"Don't tell me you're taping the balcony rail." I say, giving a big sigh.

"Haha, silly cousin, I am! Tape will rule the world!" Daiki says laughing.

"And you're here for?" I ask Genji.

"I'm bored, plus it's a little entertaining." Genji replied smiling.

"If this is entertaining to you, I don't want to know what's boring to you." I say.

"I was too late for the weekend cleaning so I thought I should tape the balcony, all three of them. Oh yeah~ " Daiki says. "You know tape you made by a genius named- hey! Where are you going?" Daiki shouts as I'm walking back to the E.A..

"To where insanity isn't." I simply say.

"Are you saying I'm insane too?" Genji questions.

"Well, you are watching him aren't you?" I say and now I can't hear them any more.

Daiki- and I could add myself- recently had the chance to use tape and glue. Of course we knew what it was, just never used it. Daiki immediately fell into an obsession with tape. He tapes his clothes, his school supplies, his desks, and his homework. I think he needs help. Plus, since he loves tape, he has a horrible hatred for glue. I was using a glue stick once, and he took it and broke it- with his pinky! Anyways, enough with my cousin's newfound love. (A/N: Gotta love comic relief!)

I enter the E.A., and there are a lot of people during this time. I sit on a floating chair and get a bagel with butter and apple juice. My chair floats over to my table.

"Where'd you go?" Emi asks eating an apple.

"To the balcony. I found my hopeless cousin there." I say with a sigh.

"You mean the cute one?" Emi replied smiling.

"No, I mean the tape-obsessed one." I say. Everyone laughs, even Tomoko whose holding her egg at the other edge of the table. "Why do you still have that egg, shouldn't it be in the daycare?" I ask.

"She has to take care of it during weekends." Katsumi replies.

"Oh wow, I'm so busy on weekends I don't notice." I say.

"Now that I think about it, Tomoko's is always out on weekends. I usually walk around the garden or do some art.", Katsumi states while fixing her glasses. (The school garden is in the back of the school. The back of the school is split into the school field and the garden, but the field gets more space. The garden is only open during weekends.)

Tomoko shrugs. "The city is a big place." She says.

Emi and Katsumi nod. We finish breakfast and head out. It seems Tomoko's actually going to bring her egg to the city. We walk down the stairs and outside. It's been a while since I've actually been out to the city.

"The plaza's across the street. But that's just the main plaza. There are many others. The street we're on is Kumi Street. This is the main street of the whole city. The academy, government building, and palace are on this street. The only thing between them is the royal guard houses and the guard houses." Katsumi says.

"Wow, Kumi Street, how original." I say bluntly.

"But it's also fitting." Katsumi answered.

"There are six streets connected to this long street. And so six plazas, the street are names after the plaza. And, how are we going to travel?" Tomoko asks, eyebrow rose.

"I don't know." I say simply.

"Well, I do have a private car just for my family." Katsumi says grinning.

"Oh~ A private car, let's go!" Emi says excitedly. Katsumi dials a number and talks on the phone. After 3 minutes, the car is right in front of the school.

"Thanks Katsumi." I say sincerely.

"No problem." Katsumi replies. We all get in the car. Tomoko's in the front seat and the rest of us are in the back. The driver is a plain middle-aged guy.

"Hello Katsumi and friends. Call me Jun. What's the plan today Katsumi?" Jun asks smiling.

"Well, I was thinking you could drive around all six streets of the plaza and we can tell you when to stop." Katsumi says.

"Okay, a street in particular you want to go?" Jun asks as he's driving.

"I was thinking the one nearest, Oliva Drive." Tomoko replies. Jun turns in.

"You know what?" I say to my dorm mates. Okay, I'll stop calling them dorm mates. My friends.

"What?" Emi asks with curiosity.

"I think this is my first time in a car." I say simply. Oh well, when I was in my mom's stomach, I was probably in a car, but other than that!

"Really? Well, how does it feel?" Emi asks.

"Like I'm moving." I reply. Everyone laughs. "Actually, I haven't done a lot of things. My life felt like a recurring cycle."

"Well, let's do a lot of firsts for you today then." Katsumi suggests.

"Alright then." I say smiling.

"Hey, can you stop here Jun?" Tomoko asks.

"Alright. I'll park in front while you guys can go there." Jun says. I look at where we're going.

"Eternal Music?" I question as we get out of the car.

"Yep, need to get more guitar picks." Tomoko states.

"Then you're just doing errands and dragging us along." I say pouting.

"Pretty much." She replies.

"Come on, a music shop is interesting." Emi says smiling optimistically. I turn to Katsumi.

"You're okay with this too?" I ask her.

"It's alright with me." Katsumi says politely. I sigh.

"Then I guess I'll make the most of it." I reply making a smiling.

We go inside the store as a bell rings because we opened the door. The music room is really decorated with instruments, posters, and others all over the place. I hear some music playing too. They have individual rooms and sections for different types of instruments. I see woodwinds, brass, classical strings, other strings, and keyboard.

Tomoko's walking to the guitar section and we follow her as three teens, older than us are coming towards us. "Hey there sis!" the guy with spiked up white hair says. I'm guessing that's Tomoko's brother, same white hair.

There's a guy and a girl beside him. The girl is blond with hair to the shoulders, and her eyes are plain brown. The other guy has navy blue hair that's a bit to the left, and his eyes were bright blue.

Tomoko doesn't say anything, but they exchange knuckles. So cool, I wish Daiki was like that. He'd say something stupid and then we'd slap hands.

"Who are these? Your friends?" he asks.

"Also dorm mates. I'm Emi. That's Katsumi, and that's Shizu." Emi says.

"Oh, well I'm Kyousuke, Tomoko's bro. I forgot Tomoko had a four people dorm." Kyousuke says.

"Why wouldn't she?" I ask. Kyousuke grins.

"She spends so much money on her guitar, headphones, and all the other music stuff. Oh, and here's my girlfriend, Hiromi. That's my best bud and dorm mate, Junsei. We're third levels." Kyousuke says.

"Hey Tomo, how are you?" Junsei says smirking.

"Don't call me that." Tomoko says looking the other way.

"Tomo? That's pretty creative." I say. (A/N: Tomo in Japanese means friend.)

"I know, I am creative." Junsei replies arrogantly.

"Why were you guys here?" Katsumi asks.

"Well Junsei was getting something for his piano keyboard." Hiromi says. Her voice is really soft and sweet.

"Getting something for your piece of garbage I see." Tomoko murmurs.

"At least my piece of garbage doesn't need tuning." Junsei replies.

"The guitar is easy to tune. Plus, it's lighter." Tomoko says getting fired up.

"A piano is a more favorite to the public than a guitar according to research." Junsei answers.

"A guitar sounds better." Tomoko spats back.

"By your opinion only." Junsei says grinning. Tomoko gets faintly embarrassed.

"A guitar is like the soul!" Tomoko shouts. Now people are looking at us.

"So now you're talking in figurative language?" Junsei asks. Tomoko looks away.

"Don't tell me, you don't know what that word means." he says laughing.

Everyone's just staring now. "It means not in real meaning." He's still laughing. Tomoko's still holding her egg at this moment. She goes up to Junsei, and lifts it up about to use it to hit Junsei. Katsumi, Emi, and I run to her and grab her away from Junsei.

"Don't throw an egg at him!" I say in a panicky voice.

"Resulting to anger is a sign to weakness. Oh, and the piano makes a person more calm." Junsei says. Tomoko gets loose of our grip and puts the egg down and runs to Junsei super fast. Her fist is gathering wind for crying out loud. Junsei catches her fist, woah.

"You're lucky I don't have my animal companion with me today." Junsei says while still gripping her fist. He's a savager then.

"You're lucky we're inside a store." Tomoko says, gritting through her teeth.

"Give up already, I'm a third year, you're a first year and the piano will always win." Junsei- still gripping her fist and smiling- says.

"Shut up!" Tomoko shouts as she uses more force on her punch and makes Junsei (widening his eyes a bit) bump into a wall that makes a hole in the wall! I sigh.

"And that is what happened." Kyousuke says to the store manager.

"It'll be 50 dollars for repairing. Plus 5 dollars for those guitar chips you're buying miss." The store manager says to Tomoko. Tomoko gives a big sigh and is about to take out her wallet.

"I'll pay for it." Junsei says giving the store manager a credit card. Tomoko raises her eyebrow.

Junsei shrugs his shoulders. "It was my body that made the hole. Plus, your birthday was exactly one week ago."

"Oh, yeah I forgot. Happy birthday sis." Kyousuke says smiling. I stood there looking at him. He is kind of like Daiki without the tape.

"Thanks." Tomoko says as she gives a really small smile. Junsei gives a big smile in response.

"Well, we're going to go. Nice meeting Tomoko's friends." Hiromi says.

"Stay innocent sis." Kyousuke says.

"Bye Tomo and friends." Junsei says.

"Don't call me that." Tomoko says glaring. Junsei laughs and they walk out of the store. There's a few seconds of silence and Emi breaks it.

"Well, this was an interesting visit to the music store. I learned that a hole in the wall costs 50 dollars." Emi says. We all laugh in response.

"So what time is it Katsumi?" I ask. Katsumi checks her phone.

"It's almost 11:30 AM." Katsumi says. We're all back in the car.

"Where to now?" Jun asks Tomoko. Tomoko opens her mouth when Katsumi interrupts.

"Hey, I heard of this new fashion place. I think it was called Chic-Ful." Katsumi says.

"Okay, that is on Isaac Lane, it's the street before this one." Jun replies.

"To Chic-Ful we go!" Emi says excitedly.

**I know what you're thinking. What kind of store name is Chic-Ful? I'm sorry, it just came to me. Review? Yes? No? Maybe? Never? Your choice.**


	9. Chapter 8

**This is part 2 of the last chapter. Hope you don't mind the filler mode this brings. And on with the story!**

"So what up with Junsei and you, Tomoko?" I ask. Tomoko and I were sitting down in the store while Katsumi and Emi were shopping.

"Yeah. He's kind of cute." Emi says, going through clothes.

"Emi, should I add in my memory that you seem to think all guys are cute/hot?" Katsumi suggests.

"Hmm, probably. Oh, this looks cute!" Emi says, getting distracted by a dress. I go back to facing Tomoko. She sighs.

"I've known him since my brother joined the academy. He's an annoying perfectionist. Despicable guy…" Tomoko murmurs.

"She likes him." I say.

"She totally likes him." Emi says.

"She definitely likes him." Katsumi says.

"I do not!" Tomoko shouts a bit. Everyone laughs except of course Tomoko.

"He is a perfectionist though. Excellent grades and skill. According to my memory, his grandfather was a royal guard, one of the most famous ones. That is, if his last name is Arai. Plus, his name means perfect." Katsumi says laughing. Tomoko grunts.

Emi walks up to me. "Here, Shizu." She says as she gives me a pile of clothes.

"Um, Emi. I don't think I'm your personal clothes carrier." I say, about to give the clothes back.

"No, those are for you to try on." Emi replies smiling. I give a dumbfounded (new word in general class) face.

"No, no, no. I'm not trying anything on. I don't want to pay, and the clothes Katsumi gave me are enough." I say handing her back the clothes. Instead of taking the clothes back, she takes my arm pulls me up, and pushes me a bit. I sigh. "I guess I have no other choice then."

"Yay, now Tomoko you need t-" Emi starts to say but Tomoko interrupts.

"Don't. You. Dare." Tomoko says as she glares.

"Let's leave Tomoko alone for the time being, She's a bit lovesick." Katsumi says smiling.

"Why should I bother protesting now?" Tomoko says as she sighs.

"Maybe because it's entertaining." Katsumi says smirking. Tomoko glares and looks the other way. After watching this show, I go in the fitting room. Emi and Katsumi both get in a dressing room too.

We change and show our outfits for what seemed like eternity. Finally, after trying everything on, I convinced them not to buy anything for me. That hesitated and them bought their own stuff. And that ends our trip to Chic-ful.

"I had to watch you guys change for more than an hour." Tomoko complains, twitching her eyes.

"Well, you could've tried something on..." I argue. Tomoko scuffs, she does that a lot.

"Where now?" Jun asks us as he starts to move the car.

"Well, since it's 12:45, we should head to Emi's family restaurant." Katsumi says.

"Okay! Abott Drive! The one closest to the country's palace." Emi says excitedly. Jun nods in response.

"You know the streets all start with a vowel- a different vowel on each of the 6 streets." Katsumi says.

"Why do they have old style names?" I ask curiously.

"Maybe to look sophisticated." Katsumi answers.

"Sophisticated? Isn't that new word we learned from general class?" I ask laughing a bit.

"If we learn new words, might as well use them." Katsumi says. (A/N: Remember, they're not so big on smartness in their country.)

"I'm just glad math is over." Tomoko says.

"No way! I despise language arts, hopefully I can last one more month." I say in response.

"And then we'll learn history." Katsumi says.

"And afterwards, science. I think that's the least needed subject." Emi states.

"Must be why it's at the end of the year. We have two weeks off for Christmas and New year's, so science is cut shorter than the rest." Katsumi says. (A/N: If you're confused, let me remind you. January-March is math, April-June is language arts, July-September is history, and October-December is science.) The car is put to a stop.

"Okay, we're here, Kaneko Café. Very nice place, but because it's at the end of the street, it's the least known on the street." Jun says as he unlocks the doors.

"There is truth to that. We don't want to attract that many customers, you know, don't want trouble. Plus, our room capacity isn't much." Emi replies.

"Okay, Jun. You're on a lunch break to anywhere. Come back between 1:30 and 2:00 please." Katsumi says.

"Of course Katsumi." Jun replies.

We get out of the car and into the café, Emi going in first. "I'm home!"

A little kid comes up to us. "Hey! Everyone! It's Emi and other people!" the kid shouts. Almost immediately, 7 other people in waiter/chef outfits come out. I take a good look around the place. It has a nice tune playing while there are about 10 tables. Four tables have people there including- Arisa and some older female, maybe her mom. I'll ignore that for now.

"Hi guys, I missed you so much!" Emi says happily. Many customers are looking at us. Emi hugs all 8 of her family members, then she introduces us. It turns out, they are Emi's parents, three of Emi's siblings, and two of Emi's cousins plus their one parent. Big family. We introduced ourselves and then sat at a table when they went back to work.

"Okay, so I have the perfect thing we can order!" Emi says excitedly.

"I'm alright with Emi choosing. How bout you guys?" I ask Katsumi and Tomoko. They nod their heads in agreement.

"Alright!" Emi says. One of Emi's family members come to us and ask of our order. "Okay. We want the large plate of fried rice and the large plate of fried noodles!" Wow, how simple. We all ordered ice cold water and the waitress left.

"I'm going to go to the restroom." Katsumi says and gets up.

"Me too!" I say as I follow her. Arisa's table is on the way to the bathroom. Katsumi surprisingly stops at her table.

"Hello. Mrs. Yoshida and Arisa. How are you?" Katsumi says politely.

"Oh we're fine. You know, mother-daughter bonding." Arisa's mom replies.

"That's good. Have you heard of my father lately? How is he?" Katsumi asks, he voice is a bit frantic.

"He's doing well and he's sorry he can't be with you that often." Arisa's mom says, her voice is rather calm. Arisa's just there very silent. "Who's the girl next to you?"

"I'm Shizu." I say in response.

"Nice name." Arisa's mom replies.

"Thanks." I reply. It feels kind of awkward, plus she's a royal guard.

"Well, we should get going." Katsumi says and we walk off to the bathroom.

"My dad and mom don't really have time to be with me. They always volunteer to do guard duties outside the country." Katsumi says. We're both in different bathroom stalls.

"I feel sympathy Katsumi, but WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS WHILE WE ARE PEEING? Or at least I hope both of us are peeing." I ask really weird out.

"I don't know, I'm in the moment now." Katsumi replies. I sigh.

"Never forget your parents are thinking of you every second of every day." I say as I flush the toilet and get out of the stall.

"How do you know?" Katsumi asks as she also flushes the toilet and leaves the stall.

"I'm just guessing, but I'm a good guesser." I say. We laugh, wash our hands, and leave the restroom.

Lunch was amazing. Super fresh vegetables and well cooked meat. We shared shaved ice for dessert. "I'm in heaven~" I say after we finished everything. I noticed. Arisa and her mom already left.

"And we provide this for free as a birthday present." Emi's parents say to us smiling.

"Thanks so much Mr. and Mrs. Kaneko." Katsumi says smiling.

"You guys are welcome. I hope things are going well at the academy." Her mom says. We look at each other with uncertain faces and fake laugh a bit.

"Nothing bad going on I presume?" Her dad says. We're all speechless when Tomoko talks.

"Everything is great." Tomoko says and we take our leave. I take a breath when we're outside.

"That was close." I say. They nod in response. Remember those monthly things happening? Well, someone broke their arm this month because of it. And now it's a code orange for the school. We still can't tell any of our parents. (A/N: Most of them in the academy are brave, they are training to be guards. They don't want to go tell their parents anyways.)

"Come on, it's 1:47, and Jun's car is right there. Still got more to do!" Katsumi says, lifting our spirits up. I nod and we start to walk to the car. I stay behind and take a last look at Emi's restaurant.

"Hurry up, Shizu!" Emi shouts. They're already far ahead! I start running and I bump really hard into a person.

His hat and sunglasses come off. The guy's hair is green and he looks a bit out of place for some reason. He looks like he's in his twenties. I pick up the stuff he dropped. It's a bag of candles, and they're exactly what the academy candles look like. The academy candles are on each balcony. Weird…

"Sorry." The guy says in a scruffy voice. He grabs the bag and walks off. I shrug the weirdness of that moment off, and run to the car.

"Where to next?" Jun asks.

"Edmon Avenue. I have a place to show." Tomoko tells Jun. Jun nods and he starts driving. The street is on the next lane, so we get there quickly.

"Watanabe Dojo." Katsumi says.

"Wow, your family has their own dojo!" Emi exclaims. Tomoko nods proudly.

"They don't allow anyone other than family, but I think I can sneak you guys in." Tomoko says. I'm not so sure. We go into the wooden dojo quietly.

"No one is allowed except family members." A guy says right when we get in. Wow, that was fast. I look to my left and I see a middle-aged white haired (of course) man with dark eyes that kind of scare me.

"Sorry, uncle. We'll leave." Tomoko says with a plain voice.

Tomoko's uncle nods and says, "What user type are you?"

"Savager sir. My egg's right here." Tomoko replies showing her egg.

"It should hatch soon." Her uncle says. What the? I heard an egg takes about a year, and all year the savagers prepare for it. "And did you get rid of that music junk yet?" I give a weird face. Tomoko's guitar seems to be as important as her user bracelet.

"Yes, I have sir." Tomoko answers. Her uncle gives a stern look and walks away. Tomoko signals for us to leave and we go right back out of the dojo. "Well, I knew that would happen."

"And yet you wanted us to give it a try?" I say as we get back in the car. Tomoko does her signature 'looking away'.

"Tomoko, should I add in my memory that you look away a lot?" Katsumi asks with a smile. Tomoko shrugs. "And that you shrug too." We all laugh.

"Where to next?" Jun asks as he starts the car.

"The time says 2:10 on the car." Emi says. "Let's go to a arcade! Is there one near here?"

"The best one is at the last street, Yules Lane. It's the street closest to the government building." Katsumi says.

"We go!" I say excitedly.

"I'm okay with it." Tomoko says.

"Okay, it's called Game HQ." Katsumi responses.

"HQ stands for?" I ask.

"Headquarters." Katsumi replies.

Jun nods and starts driving. It takes extra time to reach there because; well it's the last street. We get there in about 10 minutes.

I then remember how much money I have, 10 dollars. You can revert your school points into dollars. I only changed 10 of my points, so right now I have 27 points. I made about 25 for the finals in April. (A/N: There were three tests. Whichever score you get, you divide by 10 and get that many points. Shizu got an average of around 85% then.) But since my friends' birthdays just past, I spent a lot of money.

We get to the arcade and immediately go to the token exchange. I use all my 10 dollars because I know I'm going to use all of them. I put all 40 tokens in a cup. My dorm mates put in their money too. I go over to a machine I've never seen before, it's called skee ball. Emi goes to the basketball, Katsumi goes to claw machines, and Tomoko goes to those video game things. We play for about a half hour.

"I think we should play some games together." I say. Tomoko gives a glare.

"Come on, it'll be fun!" Emi says happily. I admire her cheerfulness.

We decide to go to the car racing game, four way. It was awesome, although really fake.

After that, we did an air hockey tournament. Since there was only one table, we had to do a tournament. Surprisingly, I was pretty good. We were all so aggressive with the puck; it sometimes flew out of the table. One time, it even hit my face while I was watching.

And then, it was Dance Dance Revolution! I got super sweaty from it and we were laughing almost every second. I had to lie on the floor for a few minutes. I didn't even care that people were staring at me.

"Yes! I am the ultimate gamer girl!" Emi shouts.

"Yeah, out of us four." I say getting up from the floor.

"Well, it was fun wasn't it?" Katsumi says smiling.

"Come on, Shizu and Katsumi. You two got tickets, go exchange them." Tomoko suggests.

"I still have about 10 tokens, let's use them to get a little more tickets." I say. Everyone nods and we all go to skee ball. I got the hang of it after a few games and now it has become my specialty.

After using up my tokens, we go to the ticket exchange. Putting all the tickets together equals 998 tickets. I look to the prize place and there's a gigantic chocolate bar for 1000 tickets! It's about 4 feet wide and long.

"Oh missed a ticket!" Emi says as she puts it into the ticket exchange. Now it's 999 tickets.

"You guys! Search the floor for another ticket!" I say.

"We can always play another g-" Katsumi starts but I interrupt.

"No, we can just find one!" I say. We searched every inch of the place and gave up.

"Let's just play another game." Tomoko says. I sigh and we're about to go back to the ticket exchange when the prize worker speaks.

"Why don't I just give it to you with 999?" he says in a very bored voice. I turn to him slowly.

"You watched us look for a ticket this whole time, and didn't mention that?" I ask slowly. He's a bit on the old side and he looks super bored.

"Pretty much." He replies real plainly. I give a sigh. Why should I go crazy over one ticket?

"Just give us the dang chocolate bar." I say handing him the paper that says my 999 tickets. We carry the chocolate bar together and we almost bump into- Mana and two other girls. One of the girls was the one in the PE locker restroom that day.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't paper freak and her friends." Mana says. I sigh, there's a reason that I have that name.

You see, sometimes I didn't have much homework in study hall, so then I'd read books.

But then sometimes I'd be bored with books so what would I do now? I then found my answer, paper! I have so much scratch paper in my bag. On the Internet I searched up how to do different paper folding. I learned to make boats, airplanes, boxes, balls, stars, hearts, and finally mastered the crane recently. It's my additional hobby now in the library during free time.

Of course, Mana and her friends would see me fold paper and make fun of me. I just ignored it and sometimes flew a paper airplane at her.

"At least I don't serve a royal guard's daughter/ogle over the principal's son and have a fake personality doing it." I say in response. Mana gives an angry look and is ready to come at me. I give her a glare and walk out of the arcade before she gets a chance. My friends are right behind me.

"Well, that was pretty harsh, but I have no right to judge." Katsumi says.

"All of it was true in my opinion." I reply.

"Well, if she doesn't like you, then we don't like her." Emi says smiling. I give a smile.

"Wait, what time is it?" Tomoko asks.

"4:39. Why?" Katsumi replies.

"There's a cool snack place near here." Tomoko says. That's weird; Tomoko only remembers something important.

"Oh yeah, it's called Teen In The Mix." Katsumi says fixing her glasses.

"Alright, let's walk there!" Emi says walking fast. We reach there in about 2 minutes. We open the door and someone greets us.

"Hey there Tomoko." A girl says. She has green eyes and brown hair. Her hair is medium, below the shoulders but above the waist. Tomoko gives a wave. She works here from how I see it.

"These are my… friends. Katsumi, Shizu, and Emi." Tomoko says to the girl. The girl grins.

"I'm Ootsuki. Don't ask for my first name. I'm a level five knight." Ootsuki says. I then wonder what her first name is.

"Yeah, your first name is pretty funny." Tomoko says grinning a bit.

"Come on, sit down." Ootsuki says smoothly ignoring Tomoko. We sit down and order drinks. Ootsuki goes to the counter to make our orders.

"She got me into music when I was young." Tomoko says.

"Oh, but I saw her play basketball. And really good too." Emi replies.

"Yeah, she's good at that too." Tomoko says with a face full of pride.

"What instrument does she play?" Katsumi asks.

"The baritone sax." Tomoko responses.

"Never heard." I say simply. Ootsuki comes to us.

"Let's see. Two strawberry bananas, one extreme berry, and one strawberry kiwi." She says setting down our drinks and walking off.

"Okay, guys. This toast is to being 14!" Emi says loudly.

"To being 14!" Katsumi, Tomoko, and I say happily. We lift our smoothies and they clang.

**End of chapter. The new character, Ootsuki is not that important. She's just a role model for Tomoko. And also if you'd forgotten: a knight is a swordsman. A swordsman can choose from a knight or a samurai their second year.**


	10. Chapter 9

**Yes, yes. I'm here. This chapter's probably why the story's T rated. And no, I'm not talking about sexual context; I'm talking about mature language, aka bad words. **

The bell rang and we got out of the PE locker rooms.

"That was boring." Tomoko says.

"Don't say the obvious." I reply tiredly.

"At least we have lunch now!" Emi says smiling.

"Yeah, only one class left then." Katsumi states. I sigh. Katsumi and Emi are always the optimists.

Exactly not really, Emi's the only optimist. Katsumi is just saying the facts. Tomoko's the pessimistic one, and I'm a nobody. That's what I realized through the past few days. Emi can play basketball, Katsumi can do art, and even Tomoko can play the guitar. And me? I can fold paper into origami. I'm Plain Jane.

We reach the E.A. and take our food. We then go over to our table and I see Katsumi holding the school paper from morning. I forgot to look at it.

"Hey, Katsumi. What does the school paper say today?" I ask. The date today is July 5th and the school newspaper always comes out on Tuesdays.

"They have an article of how hot it'll be this whole month. They have one about those monthly mystic things. And they have one about how half the newspaper class will be gone next year and they're scouting for recruits." Katsumi says.

"Maybe next year, they won't be so overdramatic then." I say jokingly, taking a bite of my taco.

"Hey, they say this week will be the hottest of the month." Katsumi says, still looking at the newspaper.

"Yay, then maybe we can go out for PE next week instead of staying inside." Emi says.

"We should have a water gun fight." I suggest.

"Ootsuki requested one for sometime this month." Tomoko says simply.

"Well, hopefully she's persuasive." Emi says. If we do have one, I'll have to buy a swimsuit. Actually, I have to buy it anyways; we're doing swimming in August for PE. I sigh, remembering what Ryuta gave Daiki and I two days ago.

(START OF FLASHBACK)

_ "I'm back from cleaning the school." I say as I walk in the dorm room. I look at the clock and it's 2:21 PM._

"_Yay! Oh, and we have mail today!" Emi says._

_ On Sunday morning, someone slips mail under every dorm. I've never gotten mail, and I never expected it either. _

_ "Where's everyone?" I ask I pick up my wooden sword, training with it._

_ "Tomoko went to the town and she took her guitar. Katsumi went to her empty art classroom to paint." Emi replies._

_ "That's typical of them." I say swinging my sword around. Emi comes up to me._

"_You got mail!" Emi says. I go over to the front of the door and take the letter. _

**TO: SHIZU SANU AND DAIKI MORI**

**FROM: RYUTA SANU**

_If Ryuta gave us mail, it must be kind of important. We're not allowed to go to boy dorms, so I'll just wait tomorrow. Or not. I remember Daiki's dorm number was 37._

_ "I'll be back!" I say walking out of the dorm with the letter. I went out so fast I forgot to let go of my wooden sword. I go out of the girl dorm hallway and into the boy dorm hallways. They have 4 halls while the girls only have 3. I go through the 2__nd__ hall and knock on dorm 37. Genji opens it, looking bored._

_ "Where's Daiki?" I ask._

_"Being a rule breaker I see." Genji says grinning._

_ "Just tell me." I say rolling my eyes._

_"I'll tell you if you do someth-" Genji starts but I stop him putting my wooden sword right below his chin._

_ "Tell me." I say more simply this time._

_ "Middle balcony and you should know that by now." Genji says still grinning. I've never seen him not grin. I leave without saying anything. I go out of the boy dorms, up the stairs, and all the way to the middle balcony. I see Daiki sitting on one of the couches. _

"_What's up cousin? Here to give me a birthday present?" Daiki asks._

"_Last time I checked, your birthday was a week ago." I reply. "Anyways, we got mail from Ryuta." _

"_The Ryuta?" Daiki asks smiling a bit._

"_What other Ryutas are there?" I shout. We pause for a moment._

"_You don't think anything bad happened right?" Daiki asks losing his smile a bit._

"_Only one way to find out." I reply and open the envelope. We sit next to each other and read it silently._

**Dear Shizu and Daiki, **

** How are you guys? The others and I miss you two, almost desperately. We haven't seen each other in 6 months. I decided when you both turn 14, I'd send a letter. So since Daiki just turned 14… you know the rest. Please don't worry about us, live your lives at the academy like I did. **

** Here's an overview. Kouki can walk now. Ume is starting to learn words. Akio is the same, which makes me laugh. Souta is missing you guys the most. Chou seems grown up at just age 8. Yuina's more efficient now. Kazue is wise as usual. And me? I'm getting cooler by each day.**

**Everyone wants to see you guys, but we know you two are training or trying to make points. (Which, by the way, spend them for your selves.) Keep doing that. Hope you are smiling now, because I am. Stay strong, bye.**

**With love from the family,**

**Ryuta**

_Tears fall down automatically while I'm reading this._

_ "You crying?" Daiki asks. I nod my head. Daiki is smiling._

_ "Why aren't you?" I ask._

_ "A man doesn't cry." Daiki says. I laugh a bit. Daiki hands me a tissue._

_ I blow my nose and stop crying. "Where did you get the tissue?" I ask._

_ "At the restroom, took a whole bunch." Daiki answers. I burst out laughing._

_ My laughter stops after a while. "Well, I'm going to go. Is this your favorite place now?" I question._

_ "Yep, I like it a lot." Daiki says._

_ "Even more than tape?" I ask. Daiki laughs evilly._

_ "Never." He says and continues to laugh evilly._

_ "Bye~" I say walking out of the balcony._

_ "See you." Daiki says in response._

(END OF FLASHBACK)

"Hello? Shizu are you there?" Katsumi asks. I snap out of my thoughts.

"Sorry. I'm here, what were you guys asking me?" I question.

"Are you interested in any guys yet?" Emi asks smiling.

I immediately thought of Ken, which was weird since he's a retard. However, he doesn't hate me, he only hates my kind. Maybe if he got to know me better, we could be…. friends. Wait, no. People like him don't change. Never mind.

"Not interested in any guys yet." I answer.

"Oh come on Shizu." Emi says smiling. "I know that look you just had. You were thinking about someone."

"How about you? You think a lot of guys are cute/hot but there has to be one you're particularly interested in." I say changing the subject. Emi blushes a bit.

"Nice way of changing the subject." Katsumi states.

"I have trained." I respond arrogantly.

"Since we all know Tomoko likes Junsei," Emi states and Tomoko chokes a bit on her soda, "How about you Katsumi?" Katsumi looks down at the table.

"I don't think a woman needs direct love with a person, and same with a man. I think there's nothing wrong with not having a lover. You just need friends to support you." Katsumi says a bit seriously.

"Is there a word for the type of person you are?" I ask.

"Girl power of course!" Emi says. Katsumi mentioned it was for males too, I think with a raised eyebrow.

"Independent." Tomoko suggests. Katsumi said she needed friends though!

"I think it's called single." I say. Katsumi nods her head. "Then maybe you'll turn out to live with 9 cats." We all laugh and the bell rings. We all get up and put our trays away.

"I'm off." Katsumi says and walks away.

"See you guys!" Emi says and starts jogging down the stairs.

"Bye." Tomoko says and walks away.

"Bye bye~" I say and start to walk to the library. I go through the doors of the library, walk past Hano (A/N: Librarian) with a small hi, and sit at my far table. The second bell rings.

I take out my swordsman notes. Tonight we have to memorize the simple parts of a sword. The hilt, the blade, and the scabbard are the really simply parts. There are still other parts of a sword. Plus, the samurai and knight have different types of swords so we have to memorize for both. When I finish memorizing, I pick up my wooden sword. Tanaka told us to bring it today.

I remember I spotted with Katsumi a few months back. I beat her pretty easily. We're training with each other at least once a week now. I touched my wooden sword from side to side like it was a real sword. Tanaka was right; a wooden sword can hurt a lot.

For general class with my scary teacher, we have to get a book on the history of Lual, our country. The author is Sai, just Sai. I go over to the history section of the library and find the book easily. It's pretty fat, 2 inches of paper. Well, there's nothing else I have to do except fold paper.

Right now, I'm trying to make an origami dragon. I saw the instructions online and now I'm trying to perfect it. I try about 3 times and I finally get it. I look at the library clock, there's still 7 more minutes. I decide to take a peek at the history book. I flip over to a random chapter that's titled "The Void Period".

(A/N: The italicized information you're about to read might change depending on future plots, I'll tell you guys when it does, if it does.)

_The Void Period is from XX87-XX06. It was also when the country of Lual was isolated. Lasting for 19 years, nothing important happened until XX06 when the user bracelets were finally perfected. Kumi Academy then opened during XX07._

That's the summary but the actual chapter is way longer. I go over to Hano to check out the book. She scans my bracelet and says I'm really to go. The bell rings and I go behind the bookshelves.

I decided to do this rather than going to the bathroom. I slide my wooden sword so it's half the original size. I put it in my school bag that also turns black like my uniform when I put on my mask. I put on my mask, have a different hair color and style, and tap my card three times. I'm in front of Ken's room and I open the door quietly. I see Ken lying on the couch, as usual.

"Hey Mask Maid! No coffee today, it's too damn hot. Add the outside heat coming through the windows and myself; this room becomes an oven." Ken says. How does he change so fast? Only 4 minutes past since the bell rang.

"How may I serve you?" I ask plainly. Ken smirks.

"I want you to open the first cabin to the right of my coffee machine's table." Ken states. I go over and open the cabin. I see a few matchbox that say 'for emergency' on it. I also see a couple mini wooden fans. "Get two wooden fans and fan me for an hour and then you're free to go."

I pause for a moment. Ken has an air conditioner and three wooden fans on the ceiling. Why the heck would he want me to fan him? He has a refrigerator and freezer too! I give a mental sigh. I grab two fans and go over to Ken, still on the couch. He's playing with his yoyo.

11 minutes past, and of course my hands get tired from fanning Ken, so I stop. I put the fans on the coffee table and my hands automatically fall to the floor. I'm sitting with my knees on the floor and I'm right in front of Ken's face.

"Why did you stop?" Ken asks in a mocking tone.

"I need to rest." I say trying not to seem tired.

"Don't be a lazy pig and start fanning me bitch!" Ken shouts. I don't respond. Ken laughs. "See? Street people can't even fan someone for an hour." He continues laughing. I have to continue, I need the points.

I try desperately to lift up my arm but I can't. I sit there for a few minutes while Ken keeps tossing insults at me. I wait and my arms can finally lift up. As I'm about to start fanning again, the lights in the room shut off.

Katsumi told me yesterday that during really hot days, there's a chance of a black out. I didn't expect it today, although I never expect black outs anyways.

It's completely dark, I now noticed the window Ken has is dark tinted. I wonder why I never noticed. I still serve Ken, so I go over to the chore that had the matches.

"What the hell are you doing?" Ken asks when he heard me open the chore. Of course we can't see each other that clearly.

"Wait a moment." I say simply. I take the matches and after 2 attempts I finally get a fire going. "There." I go over to Ken who has been quiet.

"…away from me." Ken mumbles.

"Repeat what you said sir." I say holding the match carefully.

"I said KEEP IT AWAY FROM ME!" Ken shouts. He's breathing hard. I'm in front of the coffee table, and Ken is behind it. I lean over the coffee table.

"Are you okay?" I ask letting a bit concern go through my voice.

Then, almost like a tiger, he jumps over the coffee table and onto me. I squint my eyes because it's a little hard to see. He also has a wooden ninja knife on his hand. A kunai. This is an awkward position, but no time to think about that. I think Ken's in some kind of trance. And I'm still trying not to drop the fire match.

As he's about to possibly stab me, I roll my body the other way. I run to my school bag that I left right next to the door. (The match dries up now since I run so fast.) As Ken's running to me, I quickly open my school bag and get my wooden sword. I pull it so it goes back to its long form. Yes!

Right as I'm turning around Ken reaches me. My sword is luckily positioned so it can go against his ninja knife. I'm squatting on the floor while Ken's bending down.

"Fire, fire, I HATE FIRE!" Ken shouts. I'm still gripping my sword and Ken is still gripping his knife. Finally, I use the remainder of my strength, to toss his knife across the room with my wooden sword. Never go against a swordsman in close combat. The lights go back on.

"Snap out of it!" I scream. I see Ken widen his eyes and look down. He slows squats down and hugs his knees. I reach for him, to comfort him.

"Don't come near me! It's because of your people! All because of them! Get out, and never come back!" he shouts. I hesitate. "GET THE FUCK OUT!"

Now it's my turn to widen my eyes. I slowly grab my school bag and wooden sword. I leave him there.

I take off my mask. I sigh and head to my dorm room. What do I do now? Of course, I'm not going to go back. His face was so full of hatred it made my body feel numb. My heart was pounding through the whole thing.

I'll just try to pay off my dorm rent with the points I get in the weekends. I have 74 points right now. Exams were this past Friday so that's why I have a good amount. So I think I can last for the rest of the year. Or I hope.

(A/N: Let's just say that Ken has a door sensor that senses Shizu's bracelet every time she comes in his room, and at the end of the month, 50 points go into her account for her dorm rent. Problem solved.)

I reach the dorm and open the door with my bracelet. I see Katsumi, and just Katsumi.

"Oh, you're back early Shizu." Katsumi says smiling. I force a smile back.

"Hello. So Katsumi I have a question." I say.

"What is it?" Katsumi asks looking prepared.

"Well, I heard some people talking about the principal's son." I say. That was a lie, a complete lie.

"Mhmm. Ken Takeda, the one that's nice to everyone." Katsumi replies. That was also a lie, but who can blame her.

"Yeah, what happened in his past?" I ask trying not to sound desperate. Katsumi makes a solemn (new word in general class) face.

"People don't talk about it much since he's always so happy. All I know is that his mom died in front of his eyes. We still don't know the culprit for some reason." Katsumi says in a low voice.

"How about his dad?" I ask. His dad was a high level user if he was the principal.

"His dad was attacked the same time his wife was. It was like a whole group of people against him." Katsumi says. I feel sympathy now. "Anyways, less about the sad stuff. Want to go practice against each other at the training rooms?"

I nod my head. "Hopefully not many people are training right now." I answer. As we're walking to the training rooms, I'm lost in my thoughts. I have a feeling today won't be my last day of going to Ken's room.

**I tried not to make Ken sound pathetic, sorry if I did. He's not pathetic; he's just had some problems in the past.**


	11. Chapter 10

**I updated for a certain someone. And I'm going to upload the rest of the chapters since finals are over! Then I'll upload my second book. Yay for winter break!**

**Kumi Academy MPR, 11:47 PM, September 14, Wednesday**

Ootsuki's breathing really hard. The other person she's against was not responding to her.

"I guess… I have … no choice." Ootsuki says trying to breathe. She drops her sword and goes headfirst to the guy. "I forgot your name, but you're in my general class!"

She hits him in the jaw and then in the stomach. She probably cracked one of his bones. "And that's what you call a good fight without weapons." Ootsuki leans against the MPR wall. She heard clapping and laughter. She was in no position to go against someone else.

It would be only minutes until she would collapse. All she could see was a beam going straight towards her. After that, she could only open her eyes by force. She saw two guys with green hair.

(A/N: This was objective point of view; and now back to Shizu's point of view.)

**Kumi Academy, right outside dorm 26, 2:32 PM, September 15, Thursday**

I open my dorm room, and I see Emi and Katsumi there already.

"Hey Shizu!" Emi greets. I give a smile back.

"I'm getting used to you coming early now." Katsumi says. I laugh nervously. All I told them is that I don't have to work anymore and they didn't press for answers.

"I wonder where Tomoko is." I say. Emi grins.

"Maybe she's having a secret meeting with Junsei." Emi says. Right then, out door slams open with Tomoko there looking breathless.

"Ootsuki!" Tomoko shouts as she catches her breath. "She was chosen for the monthly mystics yesterday!"

We're in the Medical Office that's in the back of the academy. There are six beds, three on each side. We run over to Ootsuki's, and Tomoko runs the fastest.

"Ootsuki, speak to me!" Tomoko yells urgently. Someone in back of us fake coughs. It's a woman around forty-something with glasses on. Ootsuki opens her eyes barely.

"Sorry, nurse. Excuse these visitors for bursting in." Ootsuki whispers in a rough voice. The nurse nods and walks back to her desk.

"Ootsuki!" Tomoko says in a lower but still loud voice. Ootsuki barely smiles.

"Hi Tomoko and her friends." She whispers.

"How's your body?" Katsumi asks.

"Where you the one in a trance or the person fighting against the one in a trance?" Emi asks.

"Did you get a clue of the person?" I ask. Okay, now we sound like the newspaper people. Ootsuki makes her smile a bit bigger.

"One question at a time, geez." Ootsuki whispers. She pauses for a moment. "My body has been a bit paralyzed. The person probably shot a paralyze beam at me."

"It was a stupid sorcerer. How long until you get un-paralyzed?" Tomoko says darkly.

"Well, that spell is really powerful so the school asked the government building to give a strong paralyze healing potion to us. It'll arrive in a few days." Ootsuki whispers.

"How about my question?" Emi asks a bit impatient.

"I was the person fighting against the one in a trance." Ootsuki replies. "I soon understood that I had to fight. So I didn't use my sword, just fists." We all nod. "Say hi to the person I fought." She points to the bed across from her. It's a black haired guy who is asleep.

"Hi." My friends and I say in sync. I kind of feel bad for him.

"So? Did you get a glance at the person who caused this? The school newspaper says no one has ever seen them yet." I say. Ootsuki gives a prideful grin.

"Oh I saw them." Ootsuki whispers.

"You did, nice! Wait, them?" Tomoko says. She's a bit out of character right now.

"I could barely see them. They both have green hair and are too tall to be in this school so I'd say they're middle aged." Ootsuki whispers.

Once she said green hair, I thought of that guy I bumped into when my friends and I were celebrating our birthdays. I bumped into him right in front of Emi's family restaurant. And when she said middle aged I thought it has to be him. But why did she see two guys with green hair?

"Bye Ootsuki!" My friends and I say in sync. Ootsuki gives a smile in return. We talked for about an hour.

During that hour, I thought about what I should do. This monthly mystic thing isn't my problem, but since Ootsuki got involved, I think I have to do something. She looked like the weakest person in that bed.

I decided not to tell my friends about this and investigate on my own first. There are a good amount of middle-aged men with green hair. I've seen some in our academy even. Although, they're not middle-aged. Before I even decide to do an action, something else comes up.

"Shizu Sanu, come to the principal's office. I repeat, Shizu Sanu, come to the principal's office." The principal says through his PA. My friends look at me.

"I guess I'll go then. See you later." I say and walk off. They say bye as I'm walking off. I walk all the way to the principal's office. I remember coming here on the day before the first day of school, bad memories. I knock.

"Come in." Principal Takeda says. I slowly open the door and sit on the chair in front of his table. Now that I think about, Ken has the same eyes as him but different hair color. I shake off my thoughts on Ken.

"Now, yesterday I felt like visiting my son after school. It's one of those rare occasions. I was surprised to see you weren't there. I asked my son where you were, and he said he wanted to give you a break." I couldn't help but twitch when the principal said that. "For the past two months, he hasn't given you any points and you've been paying them off the rent yourself."

"That is all true." I reply. Or most of it.

"I want you to go back." Principal Takeda says simply.

"But sir." I say but the principal interrupts.

"I'll be checking tomorrow. Go there or be expelled." He says. How could I explain what happened between Ken and I? I did a mental sigh.

"I understand." I say and walk out of the room quietly. I really don't understand. This might be a blessing rather than a curse. I was running out of points. … but I still don't want to face Ken.

"Excuse me." A gruff voice says in front of me.

I look up. "I'm so-" It's the green haired guy I saw! Except he's wearing glasses and he looks a little different. Are they… twins? The guy gives me a weird face.

"I'm sorry." I say and move aside for him to go inside the principal's office. After he goes in, I lean my ear against the door.

"…. I know where they're located so you better let this monthly mystic thing go on for the rest of the year or else I won't tell you." The green haired guy said inside the room. There's a pause and I force my ear to push on the door.

"What are you doing?" A random teacher asks. I jump in surprise.

"What? Oh, this?" I say sounding guilty.

"Go now!" The teacher shouts.

"Yes ma'am!" I say with fear. I run off. I sat on the stairs- which students do often- because I needed to think.

I'm now 80% sure it's those green haired twins. Let's see, when I saw the green haired guy in town that day, he had candles I think. And they were the academy candles too! I quickly get up and go up the stairs into the library.

"I need to find books about user element powers." I tell Hano. I remember someone told me we would get element powers later in the years.

Hano looks up at me. "Third shelf of the user power section. The best book is Element Knowledge by K. Lee." I give a nod and walk away. I get the book, sit on a table, and read.

I skip the 'different types of element' section and flip over to the 'elements connecting to user types' section. The first chapter of the section is about the sorcerer.

_For a sorcerer, they will discover spells that involve their element. If there is a big spell they need to perform, they need to surround the place that they want to activate the spell on with their element to make the spell work. It will be like the wand and the element react to each other._

Bingo. I feel like a professional detective. Now I'm 99% sure who is doing it. It's also obvious the green haired twins are blackmailing the principal and that they're the ones lighting up the candles. I still have questions to answer though.

The final bell rings. I sigh. It's time for what I've been dreading.

Throughout the day, I'm been thinking about two things. How it's Friday and I have weekend cleaning tomorrow and about the Monthly Mystics. There are four unanswered questions I have of it.

Who are the people that the green haired guy knows the location of?

How do they not get caught at night?

Why are they doing this?

Forcing two people to sleepwalk and controlling one of them doesn't sound like such a big spell to me. So what is the big spell they're using?

And I still have no clue to these questions. I go behind a shelf, put on my mask, and tap the teleport card thrice. I'm in front of Ken's room. I take a breath; I'm going to do this. I open the door without knocking and I see Ken playing with his yoyo on the couch. He looks up and grins evilly.

"You came back after two months? Couldn't resist ay?" Ken asks. Says the person that's afraid of a match. I walk up to him and I'm about to explain that his dad's coming over. But his room door opens and I turn around.

"Excuse my intrusion." The principal says. Ken immediately sits up and puts down his yoyo.

"It's no problem at all father." Ken says obediently. I stay silent and stiff.

"What were you guys doing?" Principal Takeda asks. We both say nothing but I decide to break the silence.

"He was about to start his homework sir, and I just got here." I reply. I see Ken nod and give that fake smile.

"I try to do my homework as soon as possible father." Ken says. The principal nods.

"Well, I trust you son. Keep up the good work. And your servant", He looks at me and pauses, "she will do anything you ask for."

"Yes sir." I respond. He turns around and leaves the room. When he closes the door, Ken gives out a big sigh.

"I got my stupid ass dad out of the way." He says smirking. I look at him with disgust. At least he has a dad. "You seem tense Mask Maid. I want you to go now."

"I have to work here." I say simply.

"Perhaps you didn't hear my orders." He says smiling. "Go away bitch." He gets up and stands right in front of me.

"But I-" I start but he interrupts.

"Go." He says.

"But-"

"Go."

"Bu-"

"GO."

"B-"

"GO BITCH!" He finally shouts and breathes really hard. I look down and clench my fists.

"You dare tell me to go bastard?" I shout. He widens his eyes and I give him a huge punch on the face. All my anger, all my patience, they were all in that punch. He slams into the wall but this wall is so high quality a hole doesn't appear.

Ken chuckles. "I made you crack Mask Maid." Now I'm even more pissed and I walk fast up to him. He's on the floor with a little blood at the corners of his mouth. I pick him up by the collar a little since he's too heavy for me to lift up. I bend down and lift up my arm.

"You're selfish." Slap.

"You're arrogant." Slap.

"You cuss." Slap.

"You're a faker." Slap.

"You're ignorant." Slap.

"You're a stereotype." Slap.

"You're crazy." Slap. By now, Ken's face looks like a tomato. The whole time, I don't give him a chance to talk.

"And worst of all, you're the REAL TRASH of this world!" I shout as I give him the hardest slap of all. Ken gets up despite how much pain he's probably feeling.

"What do you really know about me?" He yells and punches me in the face. I lay on the floor this time because there's no wall to catch my fall. A bloody nose starts. He shrieks and drops to the floor. And there we are.

"That's the most stereotypical thing you can ever say." I say weakly. Ken gives a psychotic laugh.

"They said they were street people and they wanted money. They had my mom and I. My dad couldn't get there in time for my mom. I saw my mom get burned to death. The flames, they were burning my eyes. My mother's cries were tearing me apart." Ken screams. I get up.

"So what? Get up and start anew. Leave the stupid past behind!" I shout as I walk to him. "You're a man, now show it!"

"You don't get it Mask Maid. My outer self is the one that left the past behind. My inner self hasn't. But my outer self is fake and my inner self is real." Ken says already done with his tears.

"Then mix your selves together!" I say and Ken widens his eyes. "Mix them so you get your real self that has left the past behind!"

"It's not as easy as it sounds." Ken says in a sorrowful voice. I give him a smile.

"Then I'll help you." I say as I give him my hand to lift him up. Ken gives a real smile and takes my hand. He gets up. We go sit on the couch a few feet apart. I give him an ice bag and myself tissue paper for my bloody nose.

"Sorry I made your face possibly eternally red." I say.

"Sorry I gave you a bloody nose." Ken says and grins. There's a pause and Ken breaks it. "So, are we friends now?"

"You could say that." I reply.

"So can you show me your identity?" Ken asks in a hopeful tone.

"No." I say simply. Ken gives a pout.

**Now all that's in the way is the actual conflict of this book. Teehee. R & R.**


	12. Chapter 11

**Alright! Second-to-last chapter of the first book! Let's get to it.**

"Shizu!" someone whisper shouts. I mumble. "Shizu!" the person says again. I lazily sit up from my top bunk and I see nothing because it's dark. I can tell the sound is coming from the top bunk.

"Tomoko? Is that you?" I mumble rubbing my eyes. I look at the glow in the dark wall clock in our dorm and sigh. "It's 3:38 AM!"

"Shh!" Tomoko whispers. My bad.

"What's going on?" Emi whispers tiredly.

"Tomoko is having a conference for us." I say.

"Let's hear it then." Katsumi says yawning. I guess we're all up now. Tomoko sighs.

"I was going to say that my user bracelet is glowing, see?" She lifts up her hand and it was glowing.

"Wow, it's such a dull glow." I say.

"Anyways, my teacher told me that when the bracelet glows it means my egg will h-" she is interrupted because right beside the cubicles, her egg is glowing way brighter than her bracelet. We all get out of our beds and go in front of the egg.

"Oh my gosh!" Emi shouts.

"It's going to hatch." Katsumi says.

"Yeah, we kind of figured that out." I say sarcastically.

"We're going to be aunties!" Emi exclaims.

"Since when were we Tomoko's sisters?" I ask.

"Come on guys, we are like sisters." Emi says smiling. This whole time the egg is making more cracks. Tomoko is intently putting her hand on it. In a few seconds, a bright golden light shines blinding my eyes and then it's over. There was a really tiny gray puppy wagging its tail.

"Aww." Emi says.

"It's so cute!" I say.

"I think it's a wolf." Katsumi says.

"I'll name her Nana." Tomoko says.

"Why Nana?" I ask.

"Because today is November 7th." Tomoko replies. (A/N: Nana means seven.) She already had a bed ready for the animal so she put Nana in it.

"Well, off to bed again." Emi states.

"What happened to the egg shells?" I ask.

"Dispersed." Tomoko answers. We're all back in bed.

"Good night." I say.

"More like good morning." Katsumi says in response.

The bell rings and Tanaka puts her papers down.

"Okay, bring your wooden swords tomorrow. I'll be testing each of your guys on how well you hit and dodge tomorrow so practice!" Tanaka says. People start walking out to classroom for period 2.

"Well, bye Shizu!" Katsumi says. I wave at her and she leaves the room. I slowly walk up to Tanaka. I admire her and Ootsuki the most in this school.

"What is it Shizu?" Tanaka asks looking up at me. I wait a few seconds for everyone to get out of the room.

"I have a question about", I go closer to her ear, "the monthly mystics." Tanaka looks at me more seriously.

"We're not supposed to talk about it but I'll make an exception for you. What's your question?" Tanaka asks. I play with my thumbs.

"Why do you think they're doing it?" I ask. The truth is, I haven't told anyone about what I discovered yet because I can't answer the four questions I thought of yet.

"Well, it could be multiple reasons. They could just be rogue users trying to have fun, or taking revenge for whatever reason." Tanaka says. "Is that all?"

"Yeah, thanks Tanaka." I reply. I start to walk out of the room. Okay, one question down but it sounded like common sense.

"You better hurry to your next class, time doesn't stop on it's own." Tanaka says. I start freaking out and running. Wait a minute!

I stopped running and leaned against the wall to think. I tried remembering what I read on that element book. A huge spell needs the element to surround. That's it! A huge spell is stopping time!

Now I can tell someone. I'm thinking about telling Tomoko because she was closest to Ootsuki and she's the most secretive out of my dorm mates. All right, I'll tell her tonight and we'll make plans there.

Did Tanaka know? Is that why she told me? No, it can't be. Tanaka always says random stuff like that. The final bell rings. Dang it! I arrive at my general class in a few seconds.

"Late Shizu." Kanezawa says. Obviously. "Detention at the library after school." I give a mental sigh, there's no point arguing with this guy. I take the detention slip and go to my seat. Daiki and Genji give small snickers and I just barely manage to ignore them.

The last bell of the day rings and I sigh. It's time for detention. I stay seated on my table and tap my fingers. Tomoko said she had detention today for being late, what a stroke of luck! But then again, Tomoko has detention at least once a week. I see Tomoko come in and sit at my table.

"So I need to talk to you about something." I say.

"What is it?" Tomoko asks. Hano gives a big 'shhh'. I take out a piece of stratch paper and we pass notes the whole detention time. We had to use a whole page for notes.

_Shizu: So this is pretty serious, it's about the monthly mystics. It's obvious you want revenge for Ootsuki._

_Tomoko: Yeah, I never seen her so weak. Keep writing._

I wrote about how I encountered the green haired guy at Kumi City. I told her about the other green haired guy- probably his twin- that came to the academy to talk to the principal. I told her what I heard him say to the principal. And finally, I told her about my theory that they're using the academy candles to perform a time stopping spell.

_Shizu: I was thinking of researching the time stopping spell today._

_Tomoko: Come on; let's go ask the librarian._

_Shizu: No, I don't want her to be suspicious. Plus, do you really think they'll have a book on a spell as dangerous as time stopping?_

_Tomoko: I got it! My brother is a sorcerer. He must have learned something about it._

_Shizu: Okay, ask him when you have time. Don't pull him in this though. _

_Tomoko: Fine, but we still have a problem. How do we know what day they're going to attack?_

_Shizu: Leave that to me._

_Tomoko: Are you sure?_

_Shizu: I always am. :3 Meet at the left balcony around 5._

Tomoko gives a smile. I have a certain principal's son that might be able to get me into the principal's room.

"Okay, detention is over. I hope you learned your lesson." Hano says. I look at the library clock, 3:30 already! I quickly go behind the shelves, put on my mask, and tap on the teleport card three times. I'm in front of Ken's room and I open the door.

"Hey Mask Maid, what took you so long?" Ken asks.

"Stupid detention." I answer. Ken grins.

"Are you a rebel?" He asks.

"Not really." I say.

"Whatever you say." Ken says.

"Coffee?" I ask. Ken starts playing with his yoyo.

"Sure, you can get whatever drink you want to." He replies.

"Sweet." I answer. I make coffee with 4 creams in it. I then get a mini water bottle out of his refrigerator. We start drinking our refreshments.

"So Mask Maid, my birthday is coming soon." Ken starts.

"Really? When?" I ask taking a drink of my water.

"November 18th." He says. I spit out my water and start laughing. He gives me a weird face.

"You're a half year younger than me!" I say still laughing. "No wonder you're so- uh never mind." I say as Ken gives a pout.

"You're birthday is May 18th?" Ken asks.

"Obviously." I say as I stop my laughter.

"Well, my birthday brings a weird memory." Ken says.

"What happened?" I ask more serious.

"I broke up with my girlfriend." Ken says grinning. I start laughing ever harder than before.

"You had a girlfriend when you were 12?" I shout trying to hold in my laughter. Ken blushes a bit. I take another gulp of water.

"It wasn't serious, and her name is Mana, from this school." Ken says. Now I start choking on my water. "Are you okay?" I cough for a while and then it's done.

"I'm sorry, I just think Mana is such a… nice name." I say but my voice comes out weird. How could Mana and Ken have connected? I guess they both have fake personalities….

"You're funny Mask Maid." Ken says and smiles. I like our kind of friendship; it's smooth and easy. A moment of silence comes.

"Uhh, Ken?" I ask.

"What is it?" He asks.

"Is your father organized?" I question.

"Yeah, it doesn't look like it, but he has to have a plan and schedule for everything. Why do you ask?" Ken says.

"Curiosity." I reply. He raises his eyebrow but doesn't question any further.

"You can go now Mask Maid, it's already 4:30." Ken says.

"Alright, see you tomorrow then." I say.

"You know it." He says grinning.

We continued talking about random stuff and I realized something. I don't want our relationship to change. Or maybe more like I'm afraid of our relationship changing. That's why I didn't ask Ken any farther questions about his dad. That's why I'm going to Tanaka instead.

I rushed over to Tanaka to make plans. I know I can trust her. I reach her place in about a minute.

"We need to talk." I say to Tanaka. She's sitting on her desk correcting papers.

"Is this about the monthly mystics?" Tanaka asks. I close the classroom door and nod my head.

"It's going to be on November 20th." Tanaka says.

"How did you know?" I ask; a bit surprised.

"I sneaked into the damn principal's room and found it on his schedule." Tanaka replies. "I'll probably be fired if he finds out." She doesn't seem worried about this at all.

"Nice. So want to help? My friend Tomoko's going to help too." I say. "They're stopping time with their spell using the academy candles."

"Very impressive Shizu. I'll help." Tanaka says and grins.

"Okay, I still need information on the time stop thing. Tomoko is asking her brother about it since he's a sorcerer. I'll come back to you tomorrow around this time okay?" I suggest. Tanaka nods and I head out to find Tomoko. I go to the left balcony and I find Junsei and Tomoko intensely looking at each other.

"Uhh, am I interrupting?" I ask. Tomoko looks at me.

"Junsei found out and he stubbornly wants to help." Tomoko says and them glares at him. He smiles.

"I'm not as dense as your bro Tomo. As soon as you asked him about time stopping I knew something was up." Junsei says grinning.

"Well, there's nothing we can do to stop him now I guess. Plus, I also have another member of the team." I say.

"Thank you Shizu. So who's the new member?" Junsei asks.

"My swordsman teacher, Tanaka. She also found out the day is November 20th." I reply.

"Wha?" Tomoko asks, sounding very surprised. Junsei starts laughing. "Shut up!" Tomoko shouts at him. I then hear yawning, and behind Tomoko's chair I see Nana, her wolf. I hear more yawning and this time it's behind Junsei's chair. It's a turtle.

"So cute!" I scream. I pet both of them.

"Wait until they turn into full forms while fighting." Tomoko says.

"Ehem. Enough of the animal companions. What did you find out about the time stop?" I ask.

"Well, it can't just be a triangle. There has to be more fire surrounding it." Tomoko says.

"So, lucky me found candle wax on the corners of the second floor." Junsei says.

"Of course! So what should we do?" I question.

"From my brother's lecture, I say we take out the balcony candles first. And then the time stopping barrier will weaken, so we can get the candles in the corners of the second floor next." Tomoko says.

"And I theorize that once we do get the balcony candles and got through the second floor, our movement will be super slow still. You see, only the second floor is frozen with the candles. If you go to the second floor while the candles are lit, you will be frozen in time and not know you were until the candles light out." Junsei says.

"Impressive, you really are smart." I say. He grins. Tomoko rolls her eyes.

"We have to climb to the balcony, from the outside." Tomoko says.

"You know it's going to snow, I mean it's already snowing now. Plus, we have to climb really high to reach the balcony." I say.

"The climbing can be solved with rope, the snow will be solved with water. That's my element, water. So I think I can manipulate the snow to melt outside our school." Junsei says. Tomoko nods in agreement.

"Let's talk more about this tomorrow. My brain is hurting." Tomoko says.

"I'm in agreement." I say as I get up from a balcony chair.

"Okay then. Bye Tomo, bye Shizu." Junsei says. We leave the balcony and walk back to our dorm room.

"Hey Tomoko." I say as we're walking down the stairs.

"What is it?" Tomoko asks.

"You didn't tell Junsei not to call you Tomo." I say slyly.

"Well, you know, I'm so busy thinking about you know." Tomoko says stuttering a bit.

"I see." I reply smirking.

"Don't smirk!" Tomoko yells chasing me.

"I'm not smirking at all~" I say running faster than her. We run all the way to our dorms, Tomoko shouting and myself laughing. In the dorm room, Emi and Katsumi are already there. But then again, it's 5:23 PM.

"Hey guys." I say smiling.

"Where have you guys been?" Katsumi asks.

"Uh, we were chilling at the balcony." Tomoko says.

"So you count planning to punish the monthly mystic guys as chilling?" Emi asks smiling. I do a face palm.

"How did you guys find out?" I ask.

"Well, we saw Tomoko and Junsei talking in the balcony, so we went to eavesdrop to see if they were talking about, you know, them." Emi says giving a smile.

"But we were disappointed to find out they were talking about serious stuff." Katsumi states, fixing her glasses.

"And we ran back to our dorms when Shizu was coming." Emi says.

"I feel disappointed I didn't notice your presences." Tomoko sulks.

"So let's cut to the chase. We want to help." Katsumi says.

"I guess we have no other choice." I say and sigh. "I'll have a lot to tell Tanaka tomorrow."

"Come on, give us the details!" Emi says enthusiastically.

"Let me get this straight. There are going to be 6 people, going around the school at night, and at the cost of dire consequences?" Tanaka asks.

"Yeah, it's not my fault though." I say.

"Well, the principal assigns two C rank guards to watch the school every night. So, before I meet up with you guys, I'll knock them out." Tanaka says. The glint in her eyes looks scary.

"So where do you think we should meet?" I ask.

"Probably at the foot of the stairs. Oh, and the only way to get in or out of the school without anyone noticing is through the garden door. Only teachers have the pass code, so I'll type it in." Tanaka explains.

"Alright, so we light out all the candles first and then beat up those two. How about the two chosen?" I ask.

"They'll be forced to fight. We have to let it happen." Tanaka says.

"Okay then. I really think we can pull this off." I say. Tanaka grins and I leave the room. I go to the balcony to meet up with the rest of the 'team'. Everything will go as planned.

**Ah~ I love winter break.**


	13. Chapter 12

**Last chapter of the first book. I would say a few heartful words but I'm too lazy.**

I wake up, extremely tired. I slowly turn around and see the time. It's 11:22 PM. I open my eyes wider.

"You guys! Wake up!" I whisper. I get down from the top bunk and shake everyone. Katsumi and Emi quickly get up but Tomoko won't budge. I decide to ignore her for now.

I get my wooden sword, and Katsumi gets hers too. Emi gets her wooden kunai and other wooden ninja weapons. Our team is meeting at 11 PM.

I see Tomoko get up, looking stiff. She starts walking like a robot to the door.

"Tomoko? Why are you going ahead of us?" I ask. She keeps walking. I grab her shoulder and right after that, she disappeared. "What the? She just vanished!" Emi and Katsumi stare at me. "What?"

"Shizu, you weren't moving for ten seconds, and during those seconds, she left." Emi says with a concerned face.

"So if we touch one of the chosen people…" I say and Katsumi continues.

"Your time will stop for 10 seconds." Katsumi says very seriously. We look at each other, and then dash out of our dorm to get to Tomoko. We catch up to her, and we're careful not to touch her. We walk to the foot of the stairs, our meeting point. Junsei's already waiting but Tanaka isn't there yet.

"Tomoko's one of the chosen tonight! And don't touch her!" I shout to him.

"What?" he shouts. I can barely see him, since everything is dark. "Ruki, light up!" Junsei's turtle, Ruki, starts glowing. We can see more now. Right then, Tanaka arrives.

"Sorry I'm late, had to take down the C rank guards." She says. She's carrying three ropes and hooks attached to each rope.

"Tomoko is one of the chosen tonight and she's in the MPR already. If you touch her, 10 seconds of your time will stop." I explain to Tanaka and Junsei.

"I'm guessing the other person who is conscious is already there too." Katsumi says.

"So they might be already fighting." Emi says.

"Well, we have to go get her!" Junsei says.

"Okay, hold on. Let the adult talk here." Tanaka says. We all look quietly at her. "Katsumi, Emi, and I will each go on a balcony instead of two people per balcony. We cannot go in through the balcony because you can only go in from the inside."

"Wait, how do the twins get inside then?" I ask curiously.

"Since they're sorcerers, there's a spell that can let you go through walls, and heck, there's a spell that lets you teleport too." Tanaka explains. I nod my head. "So, we have to go back in through the garden door and then up the stairs."

"Well, that'll take too much time!" Junsei complains. Tanaka sighs.

"Listen Junsei. Just listen. I want Shizu and you to wait here. I'm also a water user so I can manipulate the snow. We'll run as fast as we can to take out the balcony candles. Then, you guys can have a head start. Blow the remaining 4 candles out, and then go in. Got it?" Tanaka finishes. We all nod our heads.

Katsumi, Emi, and Tanaka start running towards the garden door. Junsei and I go to the very top of the stairs, right in front of the second floor.

There's a moment of silence and I decide to break it. "So I heard you play the piano." I say randomly.

"Yeah, I do." Junsei replies. There's another pause. "We really have to go save Tomoko!"

"Yes, just leave the twins to me while you go run to save her when there's nothing you can do to stop her from being controlled." I say.

"Sorry. I wasn't thinking when I said that." Junsei says humbly. I give him a smile.

"You really like her don't you?" I ask. Junsei gives a grin.

"Yeah, I do." He says. "I'll ignore Tomoko and the other person. We'll try getting the twins first. And the other three will come by soon enough." I nod in response.

"Let's go into the second floor, maybe they're done." I say as I step in. "Hey! I can move!"

"Really? Alright th-" Junsei is cut short because he stops moving. Why is his time frozen and not mine? I shake off that thought and start running towards the back of the second floor.

I reach there in about 20 seconds in my fastest speed. I still ignore the fact that the time stop thing doesn't affect me at all. I blow out the candle, and then I run to the next corner and blow out the candle. I then start running back to Junsei.

"Where did you go? You were right in front of me." Junsei says really slowly.

"Don't ask why but the time thing doesn't work on me." I say. Junsei gives a surprised face. "Run at your fastest speed to the MPR while I take the last two candles on this floor, hurry!"

Even if I say fastest, he's still slow. I quickly blow out the two candles and Junsei gains more speed, but still slow. I guess Katsumi, Emi, and Tanaka haven't taken out their candles yet.

Junsei finally reaches the MPR door and opens it. We both go in and I grip my wooden sword while Junsei holds his turtle with his hand. There are lights on, but it's dimmed. The whole place has no furniture.

We see Tomoko and surprisingly the scarf girl, Arisa! She looks uncertain as usual, and she's holding a really small wand. She has blood dripping from her forehead. I grit my teeth.

"Show yourselves! We know you're sorcerers, you guys are twins, and you're blackmailing the principal! We know!" Junsei shouts in anger. I hear laughing and the green haired twins appear.

"Special spell: rope trap!" one of the twins yell while swinging his wand. Two ropes come out of nowhere, one to trap each of us two. I quickly do a back flip, but because of Junsei being slow from the candles, he gets caught.

At the corner of my eye, I see Tomoko start unconsciously fighting again. She hasn't summoned Nana yet, but she's doing combat.

The rope still follows to catch me so I use my bokken to chop it to pieces. I run over to Junsei and slice his rope too.

"Ruki, grow!" Junsei shouts. He's getting faster; I guess that means one more candle went out. I widen my eyes as his turtle grows about ten feet tall. Junsei's about to speak again but one of the twins interrupts him.

"Offense spell: power shots times 10!" he shouts as he keeps laughing. I really think he should go to a mental place. Suddenly, bright lights appear beside him. There are 10 different lights. They start shooting at our direction.

"Ruki, protect!" Junsei yells. The turtle makes a protective barrier just in time.

"Offense spell: power boost!" the twin shoots. The other twin, the one with glasses, is just watching us. The shooting lights turn into thick beams and the barrier breaks. I start running to the twin that's doing all the work.

"Junsei, take the glasses guy!" I shout. He nods his head and starts running. Now, he's running full speed. I think all the candles are out now, so we just have to stall until reinforcements arrive. I run at my fasted speed, and then I leap and swing my sword at full force. He's about to speak but it's too late, blood's coming out of his shoulder. I grin with pride.

"Ha, ha ha ha! Special spell: quick heal!" he shouts and I watch as his wound disappears. I back up a bit now.

"Hey brother, shouldn't I just re-light the candles at the snap of my fingers?" The twin with glasses asks the person I'm going against. He's still fighting Junsei and Junsei looks pretty messed up.

"No, let's just kill them, I've been wanting to fight." He says with a scary smile. While he's saying this I run towards him again and I swing towards his stomach. After I do, he disappears.

"Haha! While you were looking at my brother I created a clone! Stupid girl!" he shouts from behind. I turn around. "Element spell: fire path!"

A path of fire comes towards me at full speed. I start running but it's too late. Fire gets on a little above my left ankle. This hurt like nothing I've ever felt before.

I remember when I was living with my 'family' one day in the winter. It was so cold my whole body started to get frostbites. Fire on a little part of my skin hurt 100 times worse.

"AHHHHH!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. By then I knew some people in our school were going to wake up.

"SHIZU!" I barely hear Junsei shout because the pain is too terrible. My leg is really going to die now. I'll be handicapped now. I can't be a swordsman now.

"Element: freezing water!" Someone shouts. Suddenly, a wave of ice-cold water goes over my body. The fire stops and my body gets cold. The wave then stops.

I drop to the floor and start to shiver. I don't shiver because I'm cold, but because I'm scared. I slowly look up and I see Tanaka, Katsumi, and Emi.

"Katsumi and Emi, take Shizu to a corner of this room and treat her! Don't get caught be anyone! Junsei, make sure Tomoko does not kill the girl! I'll handle these too." Tanaka says in a loud voice. I look over at Tomoko and Arisa. Tomoko's is seriously punching and kicking her.

Katsumi and Emi are carrying me to a corner. My eyes are wide open but my leg still feels bad. Emi hands me a pill.

"This will lessen the pain you're feeling." Emi says. I take it and swallow it. In about 10 seconds, I feel no more pain. Katsumi takes out a bottle of brown liquid.

"What. Is. That." I say in disgust.

"I have to spill a little on your wound. It won't sting because of the pill you just took so don't worry." Katsumi explains. I nod my head. She pours a couple of drops and the burning scars almost disappear in about a minute.

There's still a dark spot that remains. "That spot will probably remain with you for the rest of your life." I sigh. They wrap gauze bandages on the spot.

"You guys can go help Junsei since I doubt Tanaka needs help." I say as a smile. They nod their heads and go help Junsei.

On Junsei's side, he's going against Tomoko and Arisa is just watching. Katsumi and Emi run over to Arisa and help heal her injuries. She is seriously bleeding.

"Oh don't mind me!" Junsei shouts as he continues fighting Tomoko. They're just using fists and feet.

I look over to Tanaka; she has a katana. I see her use so many skills she taught us in class. It looks way better in a real battle. The Japanese sword and her are moving so elegantly and fast. This is amazing sword art.

"Sword: double!" Tanaka shouts and now she has two swords. "Element: water towers!"

Suddenly, pillars of water appear and rise. Tanaka is standing on one of them and she's really high up. She then directs two water pillars (with her two swords) to go to the twins. Each twin gets caught in a water pillar. This all happens so fast my eyes can barely see it.

"The thing about sorcerers is", she pauses "they talk too much!" The water pillars disappear and Tanaka is kind of flying to them. The twins are choking from the water. Right then, she slices their stomach sides.

(A/N: Okay, since it was a little too hard to explain there, I'll explain here. It's like she crossed her arms while slicing the twins.)

Blood is sprayed onto the floor and I'm regretting that I didn't close my eyes. I slowly get up. Tomoko is out of her daze thankfully. "That was amazing!" I shout to Tanaka. "But, what are we going to do to them?" I point to the twins.

"They'll be taken to the city prison. Now, you guys should get out of here. Teachers are going to come soon because I know they heard some things. Are you okay with the school not knowing you were involved?" Tanaka says.

"I'm alright with it." I say. Junsei, Katsumi, and Emi nod their heads. Tomoko's asleep so Junsei's carrying her. Arisa is still injured because the wounds were deep.

"Then run!" Tanaka shouts. We nod our heads and take the back exit. We hear footsteps coming up the stairs.

"To the library!" I whisper. We run to the front of the library. "Crap, it's locked!"

"Well, we're going to get found out!" Emi whispers. I start thinking.

"I got it!" I say as I pull out the teleport card. I'm always with it. "Katsumi, what time is it?" Katsumi looks at her phone.

"12:04 AM" Katsumi says.

"Perfect." I respond. (A/N: If you were paying attention to the previous chapters you would understand what's going to happen. But no worries, I'll explain again. Shizu's teleport card can only be used once a day. And it just turned into the next day….)

"Everyone touch each other! And now's not the time to be laughing at that statement." I whisper. They do what I say quickly. "Don't question what's about to happen." I tap on the card three times and we're in front of Ken's room. They look around in confusion.

"This is the boy's special dorm place." Junsei says.

"Skip the explanations, let's go!" I shout. Katsumi and Emi are still carrying Arisa.

"Okay, Katsumi, Emi, take Tomoko and I'll take Arisa." I suggest. They nod their heads and I carry Arisa. She's light. Junsei goes back to the boy dorms. We head to the girl dorms.

"Wait. I-I'm in the girl special dorm A." Arisa whispers. That was expected.

"You guys go on ahead. I got her." I say.

"Okay Shizu." Emi says and they walk off carrying Tomoko. I carry Arisa down the girl special dorms hall. She uses her bracelet to open her door. I set her on one of the chairs. This room is like Ken's, except more girly.

"Are you feeling okay?" I ask. She nods her head slowly.

"Thanks." She says quietly. I turn around to leave. This is how I'm going to end my conversation with Arisa. I don't want this. I have to tell her, I have to. I turn around again to walk up to her.

"You're weak. You need to get stronger." I say simply. She doesn't change her expression. I walk away and close the door. I exhale. I hope I was clear enough. Well, this was all in a night's work.

**December 16****th****, Friday, Last Day of School, Lunch Time**

"I'm going to miss you guys." Emi says as we're walking towards the E.A..

"That's the 26th time you've said that." Katsumi says.

"We're only going to be gone for two weeks." Tomoko says.

"Plus two days." I remind them. My first year is done just like that. We just finished our last exam since enrichment has no exams. (A/N: Exams every 3 months!) My exam points will probably go into my account soon.

We're about to go into the E.A. when Genji comes up to me.

"Hey, Shizu! I got something to show you." He says. I wave bye to my friends and then I follow him. He's walking towards the left balcony. This is where we made planning for the monthly mystics.

"Is it about Daiki, because I doubt I'd care." I say to him. He doesn't respond.

"I lied. I have nothing to show you, just something to tell you." Genji says.

"Then why would you lie?" I say twitching my eyes. He gives a smile.

"I like you, Shizu." He says bluntly. I stand there dumbfounded for a few seconds.

"Uhh, sorry can't return the feelings." I say simply and then I start to walk away.

"Do you like someone else?" Genji asks. I turn around and grin.

"Maybe." I reply and I start to walk away again. "Oh and Genji."

"What?" he asks.

"Make sure we don't act awkward the next time we see each other because of this." I say. He starts laughing while I'm still walking away. I hear footsteps following me while I'm about to go in the E.A.. "Who is it?" I ask as I turn around.

It's one of the newspaper club guys. He has curly brown short hair. He has a green uniform (ninja) and a 4 on his uniform. He's one of the crazy ones. He gives a smile that I have to call gay.

"I'm looking for members of the newspaper club! I read in your school files that you have no particular talent." He says.

"Thanks, I love hearing that." I say. "Look, I'm starting to get hungry and I don't want to join the club so bye bye." I start to fast walk towards the E.A..

"I'll tell the school that you rejected that guy." He says. I slowly turn around to look at him.

"Go ahead. Why should I be embarrassed?" I say. He runs up to me and grabs my shoulder. "Hey, let go!"

"Please! We just need one more member or else the class will be cancelled!" He shouts at me.

"No…. thanks!" I say as I throw him off.

"Please! You also get some of the points we make!" He shouts.

"What?" I ask surprised. I then slowly take in what he said. "Fine, I'll join."

"Yay! Meet on the first day of school next year in-" He stars, but I cut him off.

"Yeah, yeah. I know where it is." I say. I start to walk to the E.A.; finally I can eat now.

The last bell of the year rang. I heard people cheer, and some even screamed. One scream sounded a lot like Daiki's. I saw people hugging, mostly girls. And me? I went to the restroom because I really needed to go pist. And after that, I put on my mask and used my teleport card.

I open Ken's door and there he is. He's already wearing his casual clothes and lying on the couch, just like the first day of school.

"Hey Mask Maid! I was getting bored." Ken says.

"Only 3 minutes have past since school ended." I reply.

"Which means you're 3 minutes late." Ken says grinning.

"Yes, you're _so_ funny." I say sarcastically. We start talking about everything except personal stuff until the genius mentions something personal.

"So Mask Maid, why won't you show me your identity? I mean it's been forever since we've became comrades." Ken says.

"3 months, thank you." I say and there's a pause. "I don't trust you."

"You don't trust me? Come on, I haven't told anyone that a maid serves me." Ken says.

"Just drop it, Ken." I say. He looks at me in shock.

"That's the first time you called me Ken!" He says and then smirks. I can't help but blush.

"Do you want me to call you sir or Ken?" I ask.

"I like Ken, it is my name after all." He says.

"Alright, Ken." I say. He gives a big smile that looks cute and hot at the same time. Is that even possible?

"Well, you should go now. It's 3:00 and we have to leave at 4:00. You need to turn in your uniform and say bye to your friends." Ken says.

"Nah, I'll just chill here for a bit longer." I say. We start talking casually again.

We talk until the school announcer does the last call for uniform turn-ins and it's 3:50. I start to walk out of Ken's room. I then turn around to tell him one last thing.

"Don't worry, I'll let you have a two minute head start." He assures. I give a smile and then I leave the room.

I know one thing for certain. I like Ken, a lot. Going to Kumi Academy has changed me, for good or for worse, I'm still not so sure about that.

All the guards in that section of the prison were knocked out. It was the section for mildly dangerous criminals. There was a masked figure that knocked all the guards out.

The masked person was headed for a special room, for criminals that are users. Those types of rooms blocked out user powers. But the particular room the masked person is headed to is where both the twins were held at.

The masked person broke down the steel door. The masked person also turned off the user cancellation powers in the room. The twins were both alert and they both stood up.

They didn't know the masked person turned off the user cancellation power in the room. If they did know, maybe their fate would change.

"Who are you?" The glasses twin asks.

"It won't talk. Maybe we should force it to." The other twin says getting closer. As the twin got closer, the masked person summoned its sword.

The person first slashed the twin that was walking and then in a heartbeat, slashed the glasses twin. Just to make sure they were dead, the person stabbed their hearts. The masked person took off his/her mask. It was Tanaka.

"They finally told me to kill you." Tanaka says with a scary grin.

(A/N: This was objective point of view, and I hope you notice we never found out the twins' names.)

**The second book first chapter will be out in a few days I think. Hope you enjoyed the ride of the level ones.**


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